"Justice is expensive. So is injustice. These kinds of judgments are usually made in terms of money, and an economic focus makes sense in the context of criminal law and procedure, since money has long played a role in how society deals with unlawful behavior. These economic sanctions, the court-imposed financial obligations that follow a criminal conviction, are useful because they apply a metric that is understood by everyone. The notion of using money as a means of resolving criminal and civil problems goes back almost ...
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"Justice is expensive. So is injustice. These kinds of judgments are usually made in terms of money, and an economic focus makes sense in the context of criminal law and procedure, since money has long played a role in how society deals with unlawful behavior. These economic sanctions, the court-imposed financial obligations that follow a criminal conviction, are useful because they apply a metric that is understood by everyone. The notion of using money as a means of resolving criminal and civil problems goes back almost four thousand years, to the Code of Hammurabi (Van Ness, 1990), and there are several Biblical injunctions regarding payment after crimes. In the Middle Ages, victims were entitled to compensation for injuries (adjusted for their rank in society), and by the twelfth century, the king was entitled to a fee for administering the system (Klein, 1997)"--
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