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My solution would be this:
Have a running total for damages caused by vandals and call it a “Vandalism Lottery”. When someone is caught vandalizing in the community, they win the lottery, but instead of getting money, they pay whatever that lottery amount is up to. $700,000? To bad! Work the rest of your life to pay it off.
And to keep it fair, the starting amount should be no less than $20,000.
On top of that, they should be required to clean up any identified vandalism for at least the next year.
It should NEVER be at the loss of residents, students, or taxpayers to recoup damage caused by idiots.
And yes, I'm salty because vandals caused over $50,000 to a brand-new waterfront park we had open this past year, and the Vandalism Lottery would have been a wonderful prize to the jackasses who got caught!
Even this I disagree with. It sounds like a good idea until the total cost is substantial, and they don’t want to foot the bill. So they watch for someone who does anything that can be misconstrued as vandalism and force them to foot the bill.
Not to mention, fining someone for $100 in damage nearly a million is honestly more unethical than the vandalism.
There’s a reason we don’t do this type of thing in the legal world, it’s easily taken advantage of, and unethical as fuck.
So they watch for someone who does anything that can be misconstrued as vandalism
Vandalism serious enough to be brought to court would be enough to win the lottery. If it's something petty, like doodling on a park bench with a pencil, then they don't win, but they should still do XX months of community cleanup.
As an alternative to the lottery, how about we charge the scumbags 2x the actual cost to repair the damage they caused. And 1 year community cleanup as a sign of goodwill.
Either way, the cost to society far outweighs the current cost of committing these crimes. Flip it around and see what happens.
Are you proposing that doodling on a bench with pencil should warrant months of community service?
Yes, a month of community cleanup sounds fair.
We're not talking 24/7 enslavement, btw... "months of community service" could mean "20 hours of community service over four months."