In this Article, I do not suggest that American imprisonment rates can be\u00a0reduced to the European level. There are inherent differences that might impede\u00a0such a goal. For example, even if only prisoners who committed murder or rape\u00a0were incarcerated, U.S. prisons would still have a higher number of prisoners than\u00a0the European prison population. Therefore, this Article only discusses the\u00a0possibility and the advantages of replacing fixed-fines with day-fines. This would\u00a0enable the American criminal justice system to punish a larger range of categories\u00a0of offenses with fines rather than imprisonment and contribute to decreasing the\u00a0prison population.<\/p>\n
Despite their potential, day-fines did not receive scholarly attention in the\u00a0United States after the experimentation period of the 1980s and 1990s. To the best\u00a0of my knowledge, there has only been one report by the National Institute of\u00a0Justice addressing this model of fines since that time. This Article attempts to fill\u00a0this gap and to reopen the discussion among legal scholars and practitioners in the\u00a0United States. This is also the first article to provide a comparative and exhaustive\u00a0depiction of the different day-fine models that are applied in Europe. Furthermore,\u00a0this Article analyzes the main challenges for transplanting day-fines into the\u00a0U.S criminal justice system. In this context, this Article focuses on the American\u00a0understanding of uniformity in sentencing and whether a day-fine model fits this\u00a0approach. It also analyzes the potential of day-fines to violate the Excessive Fines\u00a0Clause of the Eighth Amendment. Finally, this Article addresses the problem of\u00a0limited access to financial information of the offender as a general challenge to\u00a0wealth dependent fines. To date, the Excessive Fines Clause and the American\u00a0concept of uniformity in sentencing have not been discussed with respect to\u00a0day-fines despite their clear relevance.<\/p>\n
Parts I and II of this Article describe day-fines in general, discuss their\u00a0development and structure in Europe, provide an overview of the short experience\u00a0the United States has had with this model of pecuniary sanctions, and demonstrate\u00a0their core advantages. Part III analyzes three major challenges for transplanting the\u00a0European model of day-fines into the U.S. criminal justice system: the American\u00a0\u2018uniformity revolution,\u2019 the Excessive Fines Clause and the limited access to\u00a0financial information.<\/p>\n