Down with this sort of thing

That those who err should be fined is entirely acceptable to us. But that the fines go to those who decide both upon the erring and the size of the fine? No, that’s a system pregnant with problems:

The proceeds of the £14.4 million fine imposed on KPMG last week for forging documents in connection with its audit of the collapsed construction group Carillion is to go to the trade body for accountants, with none of the money going to taxpayers or other creditors.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) is set to receive the entire proceeds of the fine in another example, critics say, of it profiting from the misconduct of members while victims receive nothing.

The body, whose stated aim is to maintain professional and ethical standards, will have received at least £49.4 million of fines in recent years once it banks the Carillon-related penalty, under a controversial system known as the accountancy scheme.

Slippery slope arguments are logical fallacies unless that downward slide is a necessary outcome of those first steps. The incentives here are such that this is not a fallacy but a prediction.

We don’t allow the judge to partake of the fines in criminal court, nor are juries compensated from sums levied upon guilty verdicts. We even have a phrase containing the folk wisdom of not allowing such to be so - being judge and jury is a synonym for an unfair outcome.

Those who decide upon error, decide what the fine should be for error, collect the fines for having identified and quantified error, the incentives are indeed the same. Leaving the system as it is will inevitably lead to the abhorrence of the American system of near random confiscation of cash and assets by local police forces and the rest. Where the confiscee has to prove legal ownership of what is confiscated, reversing that burden of proof. Not for any reason other than that when the incentives are set that way then that’s what institutions will do. Collect the cash and dare those in their sway to come get it.

Fines that go into the general Treasury pot, perhaps. Fines that go to those financially abused, possibly. Fines that go into the coffers of those who decide whether there should be a fine, and how much if there should?

No, gerroutovit, do these people know nothing of human behaviour and incentives?