A day-fine, day fine, unit fine or structured fine is a unit of payment for a legal fine which is based on the offender's daily personal income. It is intended as a punishment financially equivalent to incarceration for one day without salary, scaled to equal impacts on both high- and low-income offenders. An analogy may be drawn with income tax, which is also proportional to income, or even levied at higher rates for higher incomes.
Jurisdictions employing the day-fine include Denmark (Danish : dagbøde), Estonia (Estonian : päevamäär), Finland (Finnish : päiväsakko), France (French : Jour-amende), Germany (German : Tagessatz), Portugal (Portuguese: Astreinte), Sweden (Swedish : dagsbot), Switzerland, and Macau (Chinese :刑法典).
Germany has imposed day fines since 1969. [1] Day fines are used for convictions under the criminal code (Geldstrafe), while administrative fines (Geldbuße), such as for minor traffic infractions, usually use fixed amounts.
Violations of the Danish Penal Code may be punishable by up to 60 day-fines, when the severity of a crime does not call for a custodial sentence. [2]
Fines issued under other laws (e.g. the traffic code) are not day-fines and do not ordinarily scale. Exceptions include fines for driving under the influence or without a valid license, which (although not technically day-fines) scale with income. Fines that do not scale may still be reduced by half (to a minimum of DKK 500) for offenders who are under 18 or whose gross annual income does not exceed DKK 171,795 (as of 2020). [3]
In Finland, the day-fine system is used for most crimes that are punishable by way of a fine. The system has been in use since 1921. [4] [5] Most minor infractions are punished with a fixed petty fine (rikesakko, ordningsbot) such as minor traffic and water traffic violations, littering, and breaches of public peace. [6] A petty fine is summarily ordered by the police officer if the suspect does not contest his guilt, but the person punished may contest the fine in a district court. [7]
Most infractions are punishable with a day-fine. For crimes warranting no more than six months in prison, the fine may be summarily ordered by the prosecutor if the suspect does not want the court to handle the case. The process of ordering a day fine is started by a police officer who makes a formal demand for the suspect to be fined. The suspect has one week to contest the demand. If the suspect does not contest the demand, the prosecutor may order a fine which may not be higher than demanded by the police officer. If the suspect contests the demand, the case may be taken to the district court if the prosecutor considers the suspect guilty. If the prosecutor considers the case to merit a term in prison or a higher fine, the case is always taken to the court. [8] If the prosecution or the injured party do not demand a higher punishment than a fine, the district court has a quorum with a single member. [9] The fine is paid to the bank using a giro. [10] A fine ordered in Finland is executable in any European Union member country. [11]
A Finnish fine consists of a minimum of 1 day-fine, up to a maximum of 120 day-fines. If several crimes are punished together, 240 day-fines may be sentenced. The fines may not be sentenced together with a prison sentence, unless the prison sentence is probational. The minimum amount of a day-fine is 6 euros. Usually, the day-fine is one half of daily disposable income. The daily disposable income is considered to be one 60th part of the person's monthly mean income during the year, after taxes, social security payments and a basic living allowance of €255 per month have been deducted. In addition, every person for whose upkeep the fined person is responsible decreases the amount of daily fine by €3. The income of the person is calculated on the basis of the latest taxation data. [12] [13] For speeding in traffic, however, the fine is at least as high as the petty fine, i.e. €115. [14]
The person who is punished with a fine is responsible for giving accurate information concerning their income. Lying about one's income (Finnish : sakkovilppi, Swedish : bötesfusk) is a crime punishable with a fine or up to three months in prison. [15] The police can, however, access the taxation data of Finnish citizens and permanent residents via a real-time datalink, so the chance of lying successfully is minor. There is no maximum day-fine, which may lead to considerably high fines for high-income persons. For example, in 2001, a Finnish businessman with a yearly income of 10 million euros, received a relatively mild punishment of six day-fines, amounting €26,000, for driving though a red traffic light. [16] [17] In 2009 a businessman was fined €112,000 for travelling at 82 kilometres per hour in an area with a speed limit of 60 kilometres per hour. [18] In 2019, Maarit Toivanen, a business executive, was fined €74,000 for driving at 112 kilometres per hour (70 mph) in a 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph) speed limit area. [19] As speeding is punished with a petty fine if the offender is exceeding the speed limit by up to 20 km/h, but with a day-fine if exceeding the limit by 21 km/h or more, the monetary amount of the fine can increase from €115 to over €100,000 although the actual change in speed is less than 1 km/h. This has given rise to some criticism, most vividly expressed by a Finnish member of parliament, avid motorist Klaus Bremer and other MPs of right-wing parties. [20]
The fines are subject to recovery proceedings. If the fines are still not paid, the court may convert them to a prison sentence. Three day-fines will be converted to one day of imprisonment, ignoring the remainder for any amount of day-fines not divisible by three, and the length of the sentence must be between 4 and 60 days. This "conversion punishment" (Finnish : muuntorangaistus, Swedish : förvandlingsstraff) is only ever applied to court-ordered fines, not those issued by police.
Article 45 of the Penal Code (Chinese :刑法典, Portuguese: Código Penal) specifies that a criminal fine (Chinese :罰金, Portuguese: pena de multa) shall normally be at least 10 days and at most 360 days. One day-fine costs at least 50 Macanese patacas and at most 10,000 patacas. A court of law imposes the fine based on the economic and financial situations and personal burdens of a convict. [21]
In Sweden, fines can be set both as an absolute amount or as day fines. Day fines were introduced in 1931.
Since 2007 Switzerland has day-fines, which were introduced mostly to replace short prison sentences. [22]
England and Wales experimented with the system for a short period from 1992 to 1993. It was unpopular with both magistrates and the general public, and was soon abandoned. [23] [24] The scheme was replaced by requirements that magistrates consider an offender's means when imposing a fine, just not according to a mathematical formula. [24]
The New York Times reported on an experiment with day fines which took place in 1988 in Staten Island, which was a partnership between the local courts and District Attorney, and the Vera Institute of Justice. [25] In addition to Staten Island, day fines experiments have also been piloted in Maricopa County, Arizona; Bridgeport, Connecticut; Polk County, Iowa; four counties in Oregon; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. [26] An additional project was set up for Ventura County, California, but never ultimately implemented. [26] According to the National Center for Access to Justice, Oklahoma is the only state in the U.S. that "has taken one or more specific steps to mandate, encourage or facilitate courts’ use of individualized fines (“day fines”) that are scaled according to both the severity of the offense and the individual’s economic status." [27] [28]
A misdemeanor is any "lesser" criminal act in some common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished less severely than more serious felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences. Typically, misdemeanors are punished with prison time of no longer than one year, monetary fines, or community service.
A fine or mulct is a penalty of money that a court of law or other authority decides has to be paid as punishment for a crime or other offense. The amount of a fine can be determined case by case, but it is often announced in advance.
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which the convicted criminal is to remain in prison for the rest of their natural life. Crimes that result in life imprisonment are considered extremely serious and usually violent. Examples of these crimes are murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, illegal drug trade, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated property damage, arson, hate crime, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, theft, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide.
Retributive justice is a legal concept whereby the criminal offender receives punishment proportional or similar to the crime. As opposed to revenge, retribution—and thus retributive justice—is not personal, is directed only at wrongdoing, has inherent limits, involves no pleasure at the suffering of others, and employs procedural standards. Retributive justice contrasts with other purposes of punishment such as deterrence, exile and rehabilitation of the offender.
Military justice is the body of laws and procedures governing members of the armed forces. Many nation-states have separate and distinct bodies of law that govern the conduct of members of their armed forces. Some states use special judicial and other arrangements to enforce those laws, while others use civilian judicial systems. Legal issues unique to military justice include the preservation of good order and discipline, the legality of orders, and appropriate conduct for members of the military. Some states enable their military justice systems to deal with civil offenses committed by their armed forces in some circumstances.
A criminal record is a record of a person's criminal convictions history. The information included in a criminal record, and the existence of a criminal record, varies between countries and even between jurisdictions within a country. In most cases it lists all non-expunged criminal offences and may also include traffic offences such as speeding and drunk driving. In most countries, a criminal record is limited to unexpunged and unexpired actual convictions, while in some it can also include arrests, charges dismissed, charges pending and charges of which the individual has been acquitted. The term rap sheet refers to Record of Arrest and Prosecution, similar to a criminal record.
A suspended sentence is a sentence on conviction for a criminal offence, the serving of which the court orders to be deferred in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation. If the defendant does not break the law during that period and fulfills the particular conditions of the probation, the sentence is usually considered fulfilled. If the defendant commits another offence or breaks the terms of probation, the court can order the sentence to be served, in addition to any sentence for the new offence.
In criminal law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences for multiple crimes may be a concurrent sentence, where sentences of imprisonment are all served together at the same time, or a consecutive sentence, in which the period of imprisonment is the sum of all sentences served one after the other. Additional sentences include intermediate, which allows an inmate to be free for about 8 hours a day for work purposes; determinate, which is fixed on a number of days, months, or years; and indeterminate or bifurcated, which mandates the minimum period be served in an institutional setting such as a prison followed by street time period of parole, supervised release or probation until the total sentence is completed.
Lèse-majesté or lese-majesty is an offence or defamation against the dignity of a ruling head of state or of the state itself. The English name for this crime is a modernised borrowing from the medieval French, where the phrase meant 'a crime against the Crown'. In classical Latin, laesa māiestās meant 'hurt/violated majesty' or 'injured sovereignty'.
Under the Constitution of Finland, everyone is entitled to have their case heard by a court or an authority appropriately and without undue delay. This is achieved through the judicial system of Finland.
The Danish Penal Code, also known as the Danish Criminal Code, is the codification of and the foundation of criminal law in Denmark. The updated official full text covers 29 chapters and is also available online.
The Pakistan Penal Code, abbreviated as PPC, is a penal code for all offences charged in Pakistan. It was originally prepared by Lord Macaulay with a great consultation in 1860 on behalf of the Government of British India as the Indian Penal Code. After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Pakistan inherited the same code and subsequently after several amendments by different governments, in Pakistan it is now a mixture of Islamic and English Law. Presently, the Pakistan Penal Code is still in effect and can be amended by the Parliament of Pakistan.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Iran. The list of crimes punishable by death includes murder; rape; child molestation; homosexuality; drug trafficking; armed robbery; kidnapping; terrorism; burglary; incest; fornication; adultery; sodomy; sexual misconduct; prostitution; plotting to overthrow the Islamic government; political dissidence; sabotage; arson; rebellion; apostasy; blasphemy; extortion; counterfeiting; smuggling; recidivist consumption of alcohol; producing or preparing food, drink, cosmetics, or sanitary items that lead to death when consumed or used; producing and publishing pornography; using pornographic materials to solicit sex; capital perjury; recidivist theft; certain military offences ; "waging war against God"; "spreading corruption on Earth"; espionage; and treason. Iran carried out at least 977 executions in 2015, at least 567 executions in 2016, and at least 507 executions in 2017. In 2018 there were at least 249 executions, at least 273 in 2019, at least 246 in 2020, at least 290 in 2021, at least 553 in 2022, at least 834 in 2023, and at least 226 so far in 2024. In 2023, Iran was responsible for 74% of all recorded executions in the world.
California criminal law generally follows the law of the United States. However, there are both substantive and procedural differences between how the United States federal government and California prosecute alleged violations of criminal law. This article focuses exclusively on California criminal law.
Laws regarding incest vary considerably between jurisdictions, and depend on the type of sexual activity and the nature of the family relationship of the parties involved, as well as the age and sex of the parties. Besides legal prohibitions, at least some forms of incest are also socially taboo or frowned upon in most cultures around the world.
In Finland, murder is defined as homicide with at least one of four aggravating factors:
The Code of Criminal Procedure, commonly called Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), was the main legislation on procedure for administration of substantive criminal law in India. It was enacted in 1973 and came into force on 1 April 1974. It provides the machinery for the investigation of crime, apprehension of suspected criminals, collection of evidence, determination of guilt or innocence of the accused person and the determination of punishment of the guilty. It also deals with public nuisance, prevention of offences and maintenance of wife, child and parents.
Crime in Finland is combated by the Finnish police and other agencies.
Caning is used as a form of judicial corporal punishment in Brunei. This practice is heavily influenced by Brunei's history as a British protectorate from 1888 to 1984. Similar forms of corporal punishment are also used in two of Brunei's neighbouring countries, Singapore and Malaysia, which are themselves former British colonies.
French criminal law is "the set of legal rules that govern the State's response to offenses and offenders". It is one of the branches of the juridical system of the French Republic. The field of criminal law is defined as a sector of French law, and is a combination of public and private law, insofar as it punishes private behavior on behalf of society as a whole. Its function is to define, categorize, prevent, and punish criminal offenses committed by a person, whether a natural person or a legal person. In this sense it is of a punitive nature, as opposed to civil law in France, which settles disputes between individuals, or administrative law which deals with issues between individuals and government.
In fact, the Finnish "day fine" system, also in use in some other Scandinavian countries, dates to the 1920s, when fines based on income were instituted for all manner of lesser crimes, such as petty theft and assault, and helped greatly reduce the prison population.