[NarcolepticFrog]

This seems to be an unfair comparison to me. The penalty for not paying the fare is not meant to somehow recuperate the lost cost - instead, the penalty is there to incentivize people to pay the regular fare, rather than skipping it. The real question to ask is: if the penalty were reduced, how much more money would be lost due to the increased number of people not paying the subway fare? I don't see a good way to answer this question, but it seems to be the right comparison to me.

[theptip]

This is the right way to frame the question. It's pretty obvious that the purpose of such disproportionate punishment is to discourage everybody from breaking the rules; you can't just look at the individual that got caught.

If one is going to make an argument for any specific level of punishment for this offense, it should be based on the expected total cost/benefit across the entire population.

[marcosdumay]

> you can't just look at the individual that got caught

Of course you can. Legal systems must be proportional to everybody. The non-existence of collective punishment is one of the pillars of Democracy.

That's not saying that the fine shouldn't be larger than the offense (of course it should), but proportionality must be maintained at the personal level for everybody.