1 Answers
A day-fine, day fine, unit fine or structured fine is a unit of fine payment that, above a minimum fine, is based on the offender's daily personal income. A crime is punished with incarceration for a determined number of days, or with fines. As incarceration is a financial punishment, in the effect of preventing work, a day-fine represents one day incarcerated and without salary. It is argued to be just, because if both high-income and low-income population are punished with the same jail time, they should also be punished with a proportionally similar income loss. An analogy may be drawn with income tax, which is also proportional to the income, even progressively.
Jurisdictions employing the day-fine include Denmark , Estonia , Finland , France , Germany , Sweden , Switzerland, and Macao.