this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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Would be nice to see fines replaced with community service in many cases. Though I feel like you would then need to ensure that those doing community service are compensated the equivalent of their wage(s) prior to conviction if community service requires you use hours otherwise used by your job. Otherwise, somebody dependent on their job effectively pays more for smaller fines due to loss of work. It would also help to prefer out-of-hours community service (weekends for example) to avoid losing hours from your job in the first place. Ideally, jail would be reserved for cases where the person is a genuine danger, rather than use it as punishment.
Except then you get the boss' son "making coffee" at daddy's (friend's) company as their "service". The rich will still find a way to game the system.
Which doesn't mean that it's not worth a try!:-)
San Francisco lets people pay parking fines with community service, and I believe their answer to that would be they require sign offs from preapproved organizations. (Sure, somebody somewhere could take a bribe.)