There's no way to accomplish reasonable cost offsetting. It literally costs more to try to impose fines and collect them than you'll ever get back from people who have a criminal record and no employment prospects.
The costs of processing criminals need to be borne by the society that chose to create criminality as a concept. That cannot be part of the debt because they absolutely cannot pay it.
Except, you know, by engaging in higher-profit criminal activity. The whole idea is moronic on any practical level. It exists only to maintain an underclass.
Really? So like a system of if-can-pay-do-pay wouldn't be an example of reasonable cost offsetting, exactly like we do with being able to afford counsel?
Surely you're not saying that we can't levy fines instead of prison time for crimes. Are all fines therefore unjust because some people can't pay them?
See, I agree about prison debt traps to an extent, but I feel like this topic always goes off the rails from "debt trap bad" to "prison is the only punishment for crimes, fines are unjust because poverty."
The costs of processing criminals need to be borne by the society that chose to create criminality as a concept. That cannot be part of the debt because they absolutely cannot pay it.
Except, you know, by engaging in higher-profit criminal activity. The whole idea is moronic on any practical level. It exists only to maintain an underclass.