Fines vs. Imprisonment

[The One and Only...]

Am I the only one who thinks that many of the crimes we send people to jail for could simply be substituted with a fine?

Now, before you go and say that it favors the rich, we could make it proportional to your income. Kinda like a non-progressive tax.

When you really put things into context, it makes a lot of sense. Putting drug offenders is jail is idiocy; actually, making drugs illegal carries it's own problems, but I won't get into that with this thread. Wouldn't it be better to just say something like you must pay 10% of your yearly income over five years?

This could help get the government a bit of money and get people out of our prisons, many of whom don't deserve to be there. Obviously, some things wouldn't carry a fine: I'm just talking small things here. Where we draw the line, I'll leave it up to you to decide. I'm aiming at non-violent crimes for the most part with this.

There is only one major problem I see with this: what happens if the offender is unemployed? Perhaps the answer is not to base it off of current income, but off of the total value of everything you own and all the money you currently have saved. This would seem to be a much more balanced approach to the issue.

However, that does leave the question of what happens to the poor thief who has so little that he loses virtually nothing. I suggest having an alternative sentence that the judge could assign if he sees it fit: for example, 60 hours of community service, or the like.

Opinions?