Research Archives - Page 26 of 43 - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Framing the System of Monetary Sanctions as Predatory: Policies, Practices, and Motivations

This literature review surveys articles published in the University of California, Los Angeles Criminal Justice Law Review that discuss how court fines and fees may be viewed as predatory.

The Role of Fines and Fees on Probation Outcomes

Although fines and fees can leave individuals with high amounts of debt, few court systems use standardized measures to determine an individual’s ability to pay. The amount of fees and …

Salience, Incentives, and Timely Compliance: Evidence from Speeding Tickets

As monetary sanctions in law enforcement have become increasingly more prevalent and their budgetary significance non-trivial, little is known about why certain behavioral interventions increase compliance in some contexts but …

Ankle Monitors Are Replacing Cash Bail, But At A Cost

This article discusses how people who are court-ordered to participate in electronic monitoring bear the burden of the program costs and the risk of being jailed for nonpayment.

Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2019, Featuring Supplemental Data from April 2020

For the first time, the Federal Reserve collected information about how criminal legal debt from fines and fees affects American families.

On Thin Ice: Bureaucratic Processes of Monetary Sanctions and Job Insecurity

This article shows how court debt collection practices affect employment opportunities based on research conducted in Illinois and Washington State.

Municipal Fines and Fees: A 50-State Survey of State Laws

This report, including an interactive map, provides a 50-state analysis of state laws that regulate municipal imposition and collection of fines and fees. The analysis is based on 52 factors, organized into 7 broad categories, that measure the extent to which state laws “prohibit, sustain, encourage or neutralize” municipal reliance on fines and fees.

Driving Toward Justice: How ending driver’s license suspensions for unpaid traffic tickets helps communities without impacting court collections

This brief describes reforms that were implemented after the San Francisco Superior Court’s decision to eliminate debt-based driver’s license suspensions.

The Explosion of Unpaid Criminal Fines and Fees in North Carolina

The amount of debt owed to North Carolina’s criminal courts has increased at a staggering rate. This report gives a scope of how much debt is uncollectible, identifies the people in the state most harmed by the current system, and pinpoints the case types that yield the lion’s share of this debt.

Fines and Monetary Sanctions

Alexes Harris, the author of this research papers, discusses various criminal legal system fines and fees and argues that imposing these costs can worsen social inequality.