Assignment task: Please provide a discussion board response to this. Only required to be 150 thank you so much. Monetary punishments are punishments in the form of a fee, bail cost, or fine that the offender is required to pay either as a punishment of a crime, such as loitering, or as a way to avoid being put in jail (Rutz-Burri). Seeing as this form of punishment is proven that it does not reduce recidivism, it is not a viable philosophy in terms of crime prevention. When it comes to monetary punishments such as parking tickets, or other low end crimes like that, a large majority of people simply do not pay them for a few different reasons. One of the main reasons being that they simply cannot afford it. That means, at some point the fines could make their way into collections. Collection agencies would then have to try to contact the offender to collect the debt, which does not seem to work very often. Therefore, more money is being put into getting someone to pay their fine, than the actual value of the fine (Worrall, 2018).
I think that these monetary punishments continue to be used simply because the criminal justice system continues to hope they will work and be an effective form of crime prevention. However, I think that these punishments will continue to show less and less success, as poverty increases more and more everyday. I think it has failed to work the way it was expected to because the criminal justice system did not consider how much of a hardship even a 200 dollar or 300 dollar fine can be on people. A large majority of those being fined can barely afford to put food on the table, let alone worry about paying a parking ticket or other minor fine.
References:
Rutz-Burri, L. 3.10. substantive law: Monetary punishment sentences. SOUCCJ230 Introduction to the American Criminal Justice System. Retrieved September 9, 2022
Worrall, J. L. (2018). Crime Control in America (4th Edition). Pearson Education (US).