Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Arthur Daley Principle - The Price Is All According

The principle referred to in the headline was a favourite of my first Justices' Clerk, who in those dear dead days described himself as a cross between the family solicitor and a butler. He trained and mentored us, and set the culture of the bench. There is a fine old hoo-ha going on at the less reputable end of the Street of Shame over a fine imposed on a footballer (as a direct alternative to a community penalty that became impracticable). Footballers earning the money that they do, the fine looks derisory, but of course that sort of thing happens every day, albeit not on this scale. I believe that we fine the rich far too little and the poor far too much. As an example, a straightforward drink-drive carries a maximum penalty of a £5,000 fine and/or six months inside. In reality we never see fines of anywhere near that level, even on some overpaid Porsche-driving hooligan. Since the increase in the pesky surcharge (that is at a rate that takes no account of income) even low-level offences can easily run into several hundred pounds, that are then deducted from benefit until the cows come home. Financial Penalties in general lack any consistent sense of proportion: £60 for jumping a red light (that can potentially kill someone) to £100 plus for driving in a bus lane, or £70 for parking outside Sainsburys without a 60p ticket. One day, someone will have to sit down and take a look at the system and bring the whole lot into some sort of order.

15 comments:

  1. For years there have been calls for penalties to be proportional to the guilty party's income, but nothing ever changes. It may sound cynical, but could it be anything to do with those who have the influence to make the situation more balanced have acquaintances with high incomes?

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  2. They tried this in the early 90's. Fines as a proportion of income, so people were getting £5,000 fine for speeding. I thought it was brilliant, but the politicians didn't like the headlines and it went in the next Criminal Justice Act.

    Am I the only one round here old enough to remember?

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    1. No you are not the only one old enough to remember. It was a much better system (although I *can* see the problem with establishing an appropriate "income" for dependants of wealthy people).

      On the low-level fines/charges: A German friend said recently he was fined 10 euros for parking his motorbike in a pedal-cycle area. That seems about right; enough to stop him doing it again, but more of a "don't do that again" warning than coming down on him like a ton of bricks. I would have expected a UK fine to be about 10x higher.

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    2. But some parking "fines" in Germany are cheaper than the cost to park - it isn't unusual to hear of people deciding against paying for an evening parking @€4/hour, when the fine for not displaying a ticket is only €10!

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  3. The fines (nay, civil penalty charges !!), for parking, bus lane and box junction offences are now so grotesquely high compared to the penalties for far more serious offences, it has now brought the law into disrepute. Reform is essential. PCNs for £130 are being issued in London by CCTV for waiting for about one minute, or even less. Every council in the land is rushing to install CCTV to dip into this lucrative revenue stream, (or pig trough).

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  4. Certainly not the only one (even if I was only 13 at the time!), day fines were introduced but quickly withdrawn when a few notable cases made their way into the daily mail. One man got fined in excess of £5000 for littering and people got a bit upset about this.

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  5. Ah yes, the brilliantly thought through unit fine system.
    In contrast to the huge fine for littering, it was not possible to extract anything from the spouse of an extremely wealthy person driving at excessive speed in the top of the range convertible, as she (or possibly he) had no personal income.
    How different from current times when such anomalies would undoubtedly be foreseen ... er, hang on a minute, what about the latest surcharge idiocies?
    It's a good job biscuits have been stopped by the way, as that will offset the reported overcharging by tagging firms in the news today.

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  6. Perhaps the Sentencing Guideline Council can come off its lofty perch and have a go with these prevalent but lower level offences. Or (and here's a radical thought) maybe the Magistrates' Association can actually DO something and suggest a better approach...

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  7. My reform suggestions are:

    1) Let convicted persons discharge fines by community service at a rate of (eg) £5 per hour. Anyone who cannot raise the cash can then choose the service option for some or all of the fine. This should include PCN and FPN type fines.

    2) All fines should be payable to a registered charity of the convict's choice so the government is not profiting from crime and the powers-that-be are not tempted to police for profit.

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    1. Good points, but with fines being such an easy source of income, not really likely to be implemented. Let's face it, this is just taxation though an alternate channel.

      Councils are finding more ways to trap motorists. One method that is becoming more common is to have a sudden change of speed limit - with the sign just after a bend along with a camera. So anyone travelling at 40mph suddenly enters a 30 zone and gets snapped. Result - instant income.

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    2. should be about £7 now with inflation

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  8. Nationalist raises an interesting question; if all parking penalties were made payable to a registered charity instead of the councils' coffers, would said councils be quite so zealous in pursuing errant motorists.
    I only ask because I want to know.

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  9. This link:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-23291511

    gives weight to the idea of fines being proportional to the guilty party's income. £1,185 is a lot to the unemployed, but to a footballer it's not even the cost of a newspaper.

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  10. Don't include the Sainsbury's parking charge in your list - don't want the give the Private Parking Companies any credibility - that £70 is a speculative invoice and doesn't belong on the same list as properly issued fines.

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    1. The car park at my local Sainsburys is operated by the council. Point taken about the others but this isn't one of them

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