Media Archives - Page 3 of 8 - Fines and Fees Justice Center

The Price Kids Pay: Schools and Police Punish Students with Costly Tickets for Minor Misbehavior

In 2015 Illinois legislators passed Senate Bill 100 prohibiting schools from fining students as a form of discipline. However, the law did not apply to police and schools have since …

Policing-for-Profit Undermines Public Safety. This Town Shows A Better Way

Relying on tickets to fund government is counterproductive to public safety and can erode trust between community and law enforcement while worsening long-standing economic inequalities when residents can’t afford to …

How Corporations Turned Prison Tablets Into a Predatory Scheme

Tablets have become another commodity that predatory corporations use to price gouge incarcerated people. In 2017, JPay distributed free mini-tablets to the prison population in New York, providing access to …

Audit: Nevada Prisons Overcharging At Inmate Store, Paying Excessive Overtime

Disadvantaged prisoners in Nevada’s prisons may struggle with obtaining basic needs due to markups on goods in the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) system. A recent audit by the governor’s …

Life On An Ankle Monitor In Alabama: $10 A Day and ‘Inevitable Imperfections

Many state and local governments have shifted the cost of incarceration from the government onto the person being monitored. In 2020, Brittany Smith pleaded guilty for the murder of a …

Police In This Tiny Alabama Town Suck Drivers Into Legal ‘Black Hole’

Brookside, a small town in Alabama with 1,253 residents and six miles of roads to patrol, has more than doubled its town’s income as fines and forfeitures rose 640 percent …

Debtors Prisons: In Mississippi, Judges Can Lock You Up For Owing Money

In Mississippi, judges lock up people while they work to earn money to pay off court fees, fines, and restitution, without an end date. People spend an average of four …

More than half of Louisiana’s Public Defender Offices in The Red After COVID Shuttered Courts

Public defense in Louisiana is reliant on unpredictable conviction and user fees for the bulk of its funding. For the fourth year in a row, public defense offices have run …

Fines and Fees Are a Barrier to Criminal Record-Clearing

Nationally, court debt is estimated to be over $27 billion; unpaid monetary sanctions creates barriers for system-involved individuals who try to clear their criminal records through expungement, including the cost …

RI opens path for former inmates to break impoverishing cycle of court fees and fines

Many Rhode Islanders are saddled with debt after incarceration, making reentering into their communities difficult. After the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, Rhode Island’s Supreme Court Committee on Racial …