Fines are efficient and widely adopted criminal sanctions due to their low enforcement burdens and the wealth transfer from offenders to society. Among the various fining regimes that have emerged, day fines have been proposed as an optimal way to ensure equality across social classes, yet questions remain about their effectiveness and the fulfilment of their promises in practice.

In this episode of the CLE Vlog Series, Alessandro Tacconelli (ETH Zurich) and Prof. Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko (Erasmus University Rotterdam) talk about the topic of day fines. Starting from a discussion of her article “Day-Fines: Should the Rich Pay More? – in which she asserts the superiority of day-fine model to other forms of fines – Prof. Kantorowicz-Reznichenko explains some of the main features of those punitive measures, including the quantification of the daily units and their limitations. Her book “Day Fines in Europe,” coedited with Michael Faure (Maastricht University), is recommended to anybody interested to know more about the topic.

Paper References:

Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko – Erasmus University Rotterdam

Michael Faure – Maastricht University

Day Fines in Europe: Assessing Income-Based Sanctions in Criminal Justice Systems Cambridge University Press (2021)

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108855020

Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko – Erasmus University Rotterdam

Day Fines in Europe: Should the Rich Pay More Review of Law and Economics, 11(3), 481–501 (2015)

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/rle-2014-0045/html

Audio Credits for Trailer:

AllttA by AllttA

https://youtu.be/ZawLOcbQZ2w