Research into what drives public support for financial sanctions, like court fees, has historically focused on people’s attitudes on the need for punishment. In this study, however, the authors examined how a person’s perception of poverty might influence their support for the imposition of court fees.
Researchers asked nearly 1,000 people in the United States about what they thought caused poverty – i.e. whether it was individual factors like laziness or bad choices, or structural factors like discrimination or lack of good jobs. In an attempt to gauge how people “felt” about those living in poverty, they also asked whether people supported policies like work requirements for people who receive food stamps or how they felt about people who received welfare or unemployment benefits.
The researchers then asked people about various court fee policies and practices to see if there was a connection between a) how people felt about poverty and b) whether they supported imposing costs on people who were involved with the court system. They found that people’s support of fees had less to do with their attitudes about punishment and more to do with their negative feelings toward people living in or close to poverty – something the authors termed “underclass resentment.”
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Key Findings
- Among the study’s respondents, many of traditional predictors of punitive attitudes (e.g., conservative political views, religiosity, fear of crime) did not consistently correlate to whether someone supported the use of court fees.
- Instead, a person’s negative perception or feelings towards people experiencing poverty (“underclass resentment”) was a far better predictor of whether the person supported imposing court fees.
- Initially, 79% of those surveyed supported imposing court fees over any program of debt forgiveness for those who were unable to pay. Once they were given a hypothetical case where a specific defendant had to pay a probation supervision fee, that number dropped to 59% of Americans. This suggested to the authors that people support fees less when presented with personalized examples, rather than abstract policies.
Recommendations
- The authors do not provide explicit policy recommendations but suggest several areas for future research: more studies examining public attitudes beyond debt collection and supervision fees, and more studies distinguishing between fees and fines as punishment.
- Policymakers might benefit from addressing welfare/deservingness narratives, not just punishment arguments. Talking about fees as “unfair punishment” might be less effective than talking about them as “harmful to families trying to get back on their feet.”