Penalties and punishments are meant to deter, to pay back and to correct. They are meant to make people step up and want to do better.
But when fines rack up and payment is delayed, lessons are not learnt and justice is not served.
This is the way of things with the State Penalties Enforcement Registry (SPER), the hold-all for debts owed to state and local authorities in Queensland.
As of the end of August, Sunshine Coasters owe an astonishing $52.63 million to SPER for unpaid fines, tolls and tickets.
They owe $11.2 million for speeding, $2.2 million for drug offence fines and $7.6 million in fines for driving transgressions, and much more besides.
It is stunning how many Sunshine Coasters – 25,364 to be exact – still owe their debt to society long after they have been caught doing wrong.
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SPER is designed as an official enforcer that is meant to pack a punch. SPER’s involvement means the issuing authority washes its hands of you and your debts and has called in the big gun.
Don’t pay your council parking ticket on time? It is placed in the hands of SPER and an extra charge is slapped on.
Been fined by the courts for breaking the law? SPER will manage the debt you owe to society and then some until you have paid it.
But the enforcer is not enforcing and now the amount owed to SPER statewide is a whopping $1.3 billion, a mighty sum in anyone’s language.
Everything from court fines over $200, offenders’ levies (a fee for the guilty in addition to any court-applied fine of $130.30 per charge faced in the magistrate’s courts or $390.50 in the district or supreme courts), toll debts and outstanding local government fines are in the hands of SPER.
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It is not uncommon on any given day in the magistrate’s courts to hear of offenders who already have SPER debts in excess of $30,000. And by that day’s end they have more.
A dear friend’s son recently died with such a debt, and the burden on his estate added hip-pocket pain to heartache.
Part of the reason for the spiralling debt is the automatic option to elect to pay it back a sliver at a time. And so many don’t. Only $483 million – less than half of the amount owed statewide – is being managed under a payment arrangement. The rest was just an anvil around the system’s neck.
SPER has the capacity to suspend driver’s licences, direct employers and banks to deduct instalments, seize and sell property and ultimately jail debtors.
But this rarely happens, and while jail should always be a last resort (no one advocates that a person’s freedom should be taken unless they have exhausted other options) the perception is that SPER is a bit of a toothless tiger.
It is like a credit card debt without anything concrete to show for it. The weight of owing for too many is unseen and mostly forgotten, interest be damned.
In a strange twist, people’s SPER debt is listed as a State Government asset. It is an income stream, appearing on the black side of its ledger.
The way up and out is long but default referral of debts to SPER should stop.
Wherever possible, offenders should pay for their transgressions quickly and without a safety net that is seemingly without end.
Punishments and penalties need to be dealt with quickly. It is the only way most of us learn not to transgress again.
Jane Stephens is a USC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer. The views expressed are her own.
