Fines for serious crimes

[Netsrac]

I personally don't support increasing fines for severe criminal acts, since alot of criminal RP doesn't really being in alot of cash. Unless you have like drug supplier or weapon supplier. 

And I know for a fact, that there are a bunch of people just waiting for prison to come out, so they can RP in there. 

And the same goes for some of the factions on the server. Who are meant to have both a street and prison presence., since they are based on the real like gangs. That do the same thing. 

 

So to conclude, I don't like idea og huge fines. And please being us the prison ?

[Notbond]

I personally am not sure about this suggestion and if it would work in practice or even if it's realistic to the current laws IRL. However, I do think that if you or anyone wants to see this become a reality you should try and campaign for this through the government and Police Force ICly. The penal code is written ICly and the extra income from fines would have an interesting effect on the IC budgets, perhaps incentivising incorrect action (policing for profit someone called it).

 

As I said above, I'm not totally sure if this is a current practice or not and I do think that people would have to look closely and see if there is any real world precedent for this first. 

[Marcus.]

I personally don't think increasing or introducing fines to charges when a player is put into a correctional facility is all that good. In almost all cases "fines" are not issued for felonies for/by the police to collect. These fines are usually issued as "damages" by courts under the law of tort/law of damages, in order to compensate monetary loss through the wrongful act of another party.

 

Furthermore, these damages in the law of tort (ex delicto) are usually specified to nullify the cause, as such as it never had happened or covers additional expenses when personal harm has been caused. Additional expenses in this context refer, depending on the expert who estimates the specific costs, to hospital costs, recovery costs, et al.

 

Considering San Andreas is part of the United States of America, punitive damages also need to be considered. Which means a plaintiff may sue another for more than the "factual" amount of monetary assets necessary to compensate the plaintiff (reference Liebeck vs. McDonald's Restaurants Ltd). Though punitive damages are usually only issued, I'll say it "normal" terms, if a court wishes to make an example out of a defendant and hopes that the behavior displayed will not be reoccurring from the specific defendant and others who may partake in the same "business".

 

So overall, unless a player sues another player through the courts, or a representative of a killed player sues the player who killed the other for damages, monetary "compensation"/punishment should not be a thing.

[Felix]

9 hours ago, Marcus. said:

I personally don't think increasing or introducing fines to charges when a player is put into a correctional facility is all that good. In almost all cases "fines" are not issued for felonies for/by the police to collect. These fines are usually issued as "damages" by courts under the law of tort/law of damages, in order to compensate monetary loss through the wrongful act of another party.

 

Furthermore, these damages in the law of tort (ex delicto) are usually specified to nullify the cause, as such as it never had happened or covers additional expenses when personal harm has been caused. Additional expenses in this context refer, depending on the expert who estimates the specific costs, to hospital costs, recovery costs, et al.

 

Considering San Andreas is part of the United States of America, punitive damages also need to be considered. Which means a plaintiff may sue another for more than the "factual" amount of monetary assets necessary to compensate the plaintiff (reference Liebeck vs. McDonald's Restaurants Ltd). Though punitive damages are usually only issued, I'll say it "normal" terms, if a court wishes to make an example out of a defendant and hopes that the behavior displayed will not be reoccurring from the specific defendant and others who may partake in the same "business".

 

So overall, unless a player sues another player through the courts, or a representative of a killed player sues the player who killed the other for damages, monetary "compensation"/punishment should not be a thing.

Fines in a criminal setting exist and they go to the state, which is what I believe the player is suggesting. You're confusing civil trials where the victim is suing the defendant for a specific tort (battery for example) and criminal trials, where the courts simply determine guilt and issue criminal penalties that include things like imprisonment and fines.

 

As to the suggestion, I believe that only when the district attorney system gets implemented should offenders get fined. Financial penalties have to be carefully crafted by courts to ensure that the fine isn't unconstitutional. 

Edited June 2, 2019 by Felix

[Marcus.]

15 minutes ago, Felix said:

Fines in a criminal setting exist and they go to the state, which is what I believe the player is suggesting. You're confusing civil trials where the victim is suing the defendant for a specific tort (battery for example) and criminal trials, where the courts simply determine guilt and issue criminal penalties that include things like imprisonment and fines.

 

As to the suggestion, I believe that only when the district attorney system gets implemented should offenders get fined. Financial penalties have to be carefully crafted by courts to ensure that the fine isn't unconstitutional. 

I've meant it insofar as that the police receive the full amount of the fine issued upon arrest (through the command). Hence it is an extremely tedious process to get back the money in the current setting, if proven not guilty. If there was a process such as county jail -> court proceedings -> guilty/non-guilty -> correctional facility it would work ok. Though I might have been vague from the second sentence onward, yes it was for civil proceedings.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Marcus.

[Felix]

1 hour ago, Marcus. said:

I've meant it insofar as that the police receive the full amount of the fine issued upon arrest (through the command). Hence it is an extremely tedious process to get back the money in the current setting, if proven not guilty. If there was a process such as county jail -> court proceedings -> guilty/non-guilty -> correctional facility it would work ok. Though I might have been vague from the second sentence onward, yes it was for civil proceedings.

Ah yes, then we seem to agree. It would be unreasonable to allow officers that amount of freedom in deciding penalties.

[Rensai]

Oh, I don't mean to suggest it should be up to officers to decide the fine. The fines should be a set amount depending on crimes. Petty crimes will warrant petty fines, major crimes will warrant major fines. If the person who was arrested and fined was then to get their case appealed by a court, then they should naturally be refunded. The refund request can be made in the original appeal by the subject's lawyer. Though, I won't pretend to have everything in this system figured out, I just think we need a system to force criminal characters to consider their actions a little more heavily, and to be more careful. This is simply one method I think can work toward that, but there are others, for sure.

[Marcus.]

10 hours ago, Rensai said:

Oh, I don't mean to suggest it should be up to officers to decide the fine. The fines should be a set amount depending on crimes. Petty crimes will warrant petty fines, major crimes will warrant major fines. If the person who was arrested and fined was then to get their case appealed by a court, then they should naturally be refunded. The refund request can be made in the original appeal by the subject's lawyer. Though, I won't pretend to have everything in this system figured out, I just think we need a system to force criminal characters to consider their actions a little more heavily, and to be more careful. This is simply one method I think can work toward that, but there are others, for sure.

For me it wasn't even about the police officers deciding the fine, that's definitely out of the question. It is more important to consider if these fines were to be implemented to which "bank account", I'll call it like that, go to. I.E. Police Officer John Doe arrests Jane Doe for Assault with a Deadly Weapon & First Degree Murder. The fines for these two charges are set as $50,000.00 each (hypothetically speaking of course) thus coming to a total of $100,000.00. 

 

Would these $100,000.00 go towards the LSPD's "bank account" and depending on how the script handles it maybe increase the pay of the arresting officer, or everyone in the faction? Or would they go to a "bank account" owned by the State of San Andreas/City Govt (preferably of course an account setup for easy access for Judges/Court staff who if appealed successfully can refund the amount deducted with little to no outside help from Server Staff)?

 

Frankly I believe the method of having a state owned "bank account" would be preferable in this case, though even then it may require a overhaul of how arrests and the according procedures are handled. What I would really love to see, I always wanted it, a server pull off is to have two separate prisons. One county jail where suspects are held till a preliminary hearing by a judge (to decide if the person is allowed bail or not, as well as the future proceedings). This could play very well with the aforementioned District Attorney system and an "adjustment" in the fines, as well as giving court officials and lawyers something to do in the game.

[Ali]

I don't think this would be realistic in practice. How will you fine street hustlers and people who actually RP a realistic criminal, with not a lot of excessive income? Bear in mind, we're also talking about criminals here so how do you intend to fine an income source which is illegal/unknown/undeclared? What are the reprecussions of not paying the fine? Jail. This would then just defeat the purpose of the whole thing.

 

I think there should be a revamp to jail RP, with a proper prison system, visiting hours, jail cells, etc - but this obviously will require a lot of work and will need time to be implemented, discussed, and so on. Once a system like this is in, jail-terms can be made harsher to reflect reality.

Edited June 5, 2019 by Vulcar