Justice or just another tax?

Fixed penalties, or “on the spot fines” were originally introduced as a way of reducing the amount of offences dealt with by the courts, freeing up court time and allowing them to deal with more serious matters. They were mainly used for minor motoring offences and usually carried an incentive for the motorist in that if they just paid up promptly then the fine was lower.

However fixed penalties are now used for a whole range of different offences. Are they really an effective way of dealing with minor crime or have they become just another tax?

Police now use fixed penalties for many different crimes, littering, smoking in public, shop lifting, drunkenness and anti social behaviour to name just a few. Transport police use them if you don’t buy a ticket and councils use them for parking offences. When parking tickets, speeding tickets and other minor motoring offences are taking into consideration over a million fixed penalties are issued every week in this country making it a very lucrative industry.

These fixed penalties have a number of advantages for the people issuing them. They are quick and easy to issue. They are cheap and don’t tie up people in court. Most offenders just pay up, even if they are not guilty. But are they fair and just and do they work? Let’s look at some examples.

Since fixed penalty speeding fines were introduced around two million people have been fined for speeding. Surely if they worked and were acting as a deterrent, as a fine is supposed to, then speeding would no longer be a problem. Judging by the amount of new speed cameras appearing on our roads every week that is not the case.

A few weeks back Chelsea footballer John Terry parked for two hours in a disabled bay in Esher and received a fixed penalty, just as you or I would. Fair enough you might say. Except that this man earns £70,000 a week! A fine is supposed to be a financial penalty that acts as a deterrent and whilst a £60 fine might make you or I think twice about doing it again it is meaningless to somebody who earns that amount of money. Is that fair?

A couple of years back Madonna was attending a gym in London. Instead of her chauffer parking legally he parked outside on the double yellow lines every day for a fortnight and got a ticket every day. Because Madonna could afford the fines it meant she didn’t have to obey the law.

The proliferation of fixed penalties for a whole range of offences now means that in many cases it is only the poor who have to obey the law. If you can afford it and find a law inconvenient all you have to do is ignore it. Is that just? Is the law not supposed to apply to everybody?

Fixed penalties do not work. They do not prevent crime. They do not reduce crime. They are clearly not fair and most certainly not just. The only thing they are good for is raising large amounts of money with the minimum of effort. In my mind that makes them just another tax. Which is why New Labour are so fond of them.