Nordic Design

Legal financial obligations serve a range of practical and ideological functions within the modern American criminal justice system. Criminal fines are punitive in nature intended to reflect severity offense as well having deterrent component. When assessed conjunction with other penalties, including fees restitution, collective economic burden these sanctions can be significant. An increasingly robust body literature highlights unequal impact collateral harms punishments, especially those for people who fall into different socioeconomic groupings. There is danger that well-deserved opprobrium directed at cumulative effect legal will mask some benefits properly targeted calibrated fines. Here, we explore an opportunity reform United States inspired by two Nordic sentencing policy models First, look Norwegian penal consider expanding use primary sanction wider offenses, lieu short terms incarceration. We temper this change, indigent defendants, considering implementation means-adjusted “day fine” system which prevalent Denmark, Sweden, Finland, individualized adjustments Norway. Taken together, policies could reduce over-reliance on incarceration while modifying fiscal manner meets purposes punishment seeks minimize unintended punishment.