{"id":23096,"date":"2012-07-03T07:38:36","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T07:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=23096"},"modified":"2012-07-03T07:38:36","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T07:38:36","slug":"new-fees-equal-to-penalties-in-all-criminal-offenses-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/new-fees-equal-to-penalties-in-all-criminal-offenses-proposed\/","title":{"rendered":"New fees equal to penalties in all criminal offenses proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"
A newly-prefiled bill seeks to double the amount one has to pay if convicted of any criminal offense, a proposal that Rep. Joseph Palacios (R-Saipan) hopes will help deter criminal activities and provide additional funding for police training, overtime pay, and salaries of police officers.<\/div>\n

Palacios’ bill assesses a fee \u201cin an amount equal to the fine imposed\u201d on convicted persons.<\/p>\n

Half of all funds deposited into the Judicial Building Fund will now be deposited into a special fund for the Department of Public Safety to help supplement the department’s training, overtime, and salaries of its police officers.<\/p>\n

For example, if one is found guilty of drunk driving, the amount that person will have to pay will be doubled-the existing fine will have an equal amount as a proposed fee, Palacios said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main purpose is to save lives and help prevent crimes. The second purpose is to let people using government-provided services to help pay for those same services,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune on Friday.<\/p>\n

Some residents interviewed on Saturday expressed support for the proposal.<\/p>\n

By Haidee V. Eugenio
\nReporter<\/p>\n

Sol San Nicolas, 54, said that doubling the amount one has to pay in fine or fee for drunk driving, for example, will force more people to \u201cobey the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you double the fine or fee, maybe more people will obey laws including traffic laws. They won’t drive when they’re drunk, they won’t beat [the] red light,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But San Nicolas said it is not enough that the government has these laws or rules in place; there has to be strict implementation.<\/p>\n

Albina Lizama, 69, of Capital Hill, as well as Gary C. Tudela, separately agreed that increasing penalty fines or fees could help prevent crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A newly-prefiled bill seeks to double the amount one has to pay if convicted of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[182,67,215,38],"class_list":["post-23096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-capital-hill","tag-people","tag-public-safety","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}