Scientific Definition
Stacking fines on low-income defendants creates debt traps and recidivism.
Plain-English Definition
Stacking fines on low-income defendants creates debt traps and recidivism.
Feynman Explanation
Pay-to-stay justice for those who can't.
Core Principle
Stacking fines on low-income defendants creates debt traps and recidivism.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Stacking fines on low-income defendants creates debt traps and recidivism.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Budgets balanced on the backs of the poor produce policing distortions.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Pay-to-stay justice for those who can't.
Examples
- Ferguson-style municipal revenue models.
- Budgets balanced on the backs of the poor produce policing distortions.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Income-scaled fines. Detach fines from municipal revenue.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Income-scaled fines. Detach fines from municipal revenue.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Charging by time rewards inefficiency and prolongs disputes.
Police agencies that keep seized assets gain a direct fiscal interest in seizures.
Fixed compliance costs scale punitively for small firms and entrench large ones.
Compliance programs designed to satisfy regulators, not prevent harm.
Decisions made to be defensible, not to be right.
Mandatory federal sourcing from prison factories crowds out small business and entrenches inefficient production.
Contingency-fee structures shape which cases get filed.
Fixed sentencing rules remove judicial discretion and inflate incarceration without reducing crime.
Trial penalties pressure even innocent defendants to plead guilty to avoid risk.
Per-inmate funding makes incarceration a budgetary asset for jurisdictions and contractors.
Caseloads far above professional norms guarantee weak defense for the poor.
Confidential settlements buy silence and prevent precedent that would deter future harm.