As part of the Jefferson County Equitable Fines and Fees Project (JEFF), a group of data scientists, judges, and advocates collaborated on research to analyze the fairness of Legal Financial Obligations (LFOs) in Jefferson County, Alabama.
The Alabama Administrative Office of the Courts and the Jefferson County judiciary provided the researchers with data on LFOs from 27,000 cases between 2014 to 2019. To assess fairness, researchers examined differences in LFO amounts across populations by race, income, and educational levels. They found that Black individuals and people living in low-income neighborhoods experienced disproportionately high debt burdens. The analysis revealed that Black individuals and residents of low-income neighborhoods face disproportionately high debt burdens. Specifically, Black individuals represent 42% of Jefferson County’s population but account for 58% of cases, and three-quarters of cases originate from low-income census tracts with median incomes under $35,000. Most notably, middle-aged Black men are 9.8 times more likely to receive high LFOs for first-degree marijuana possession.
In response to these findings, Jefferson County judiciary committed to developing targeted interventions to address the identified disparities, with ongoing research planned to track the effectiveness of reforms.
You can find the full study here.