Comment Re:money-making scheme (Score 5, Interesting) 348
My kingdom for mod points.
I argue that money paid for fines should be incinerated. Seriously. Government, whether it's city hall, the local police, the statehouse, or the national government, should never, ever have a financial gain when its citizens commit crimes. Ever. Scratch that; nobody, not government, not charities, not schools, nobody, should have a financial interest in citizens committing crimes. Make crime a source of income, and suddenly you find that whomever benefits from fines thinks a lot of things should be crimes.
Crime is bad (well, real crime like murder, rape and robbery). Nobody should benefit from it.
Restitution is different; that money should go to making the victim whole (not rich, whole), as much as possible.