Cite as: 512 U. S. 821 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
the contemnor cannot avoid or abbreviate the confinement through later compliance. Thus, the Gompers Court concluded that a 12-month sentence imposed on Samuel Gompers for violating an antiboycott injunction was criminal. When a contempt involves the prior conduct of an isolated, prohibited act, the resulting sanction has no coercive effect. "[T]he defendant is furnished no key, and he cannot shorten the term by promising not to repeat the offense." Id., at 442.
This dichotomy between coercive and punitive imprisonment has been extended to the fine context. A contempt fine accordingly is considered civil and remedial if it either "coerce[s] the defendant into compliance with the court's order, [or] . . . compensate[s] the complainant for losses sustained." United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U. S. 258, 303- 304 (1947). Where a fine is not compensatory, it is civil only if the contemnor is afforded an opportunity to purge. See Penfield Co. of Cal. v. SEC, 330 U. S. 585, 590 (1947). Thus, a "flat, unconditional fine" totaling even as little as $50 announced after a finding of contempt is criminal if the contemnor has no subsequent opportunity to reduce or avoid the fine through compliance. Id., at 588.
A close analogy to coercive imprisonment is a per diem fine imposed for each day a contemnor fails to comply with an affirmative court order. Like civil imprisonment, such fines exert a constant coercive pressure, and once the jural command is obeyed, the future, indefinite, daily fines are purged. Less comfortable is the analogy between coercive imprisonment and suspended, determinate fines. In this Court's sole prior decision squarely addressing the judicial power to impose coercive civil contempt fines, Mine Workers, supra, it held that fixed fines also may be considered purgable and civil when imposed and suspended pending future compliance. See also Penfield, 330 U. S., at 590 ("One who is fined, unless by a day certain he [complies,] has it in his power to avoid any penalty"); but see Hicks, 485 U. S., at 639,
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