Research Archives - Page 30 of 43 - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Too Poor to Pay: How Arkansas’s Offender-Funded Justice System Drives Poverty & Mass Incarceration

This report identifies several promising issue areas for fines and fees reform in Arkansas, including nonpayment incarceration, driver’s license suspension for unpaid fines and fees, and probation fees. The authors interviewed 205 people who were charged and/or incarcerated over inability to pay fines and fees; performed court-watching in 8 counties; sent almost 300 records requests; and interviewed Arkansas criminal justice and social service stakeholders.

Towed Into Debt: How Towing Practices in California Punish Poor People

This report shows the circumstances that lead to a person having their car towed and the consequences that follow in different counties across California.

A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States

To assess racial disparities in police interactions with the public, researchers compiled and analyzed a dataset detailing nearly 100 million municipal and state patrol traffic stops conducted in dozens of jurisdictions across the country.

Driver’s License Suspension in North Carolina: A Report Analyzing Data from 1986 – 2018

This research article highlights the prevalence of driver’s license suspensions in North Carolina due to unpaid fines and fees and failures to appear in court for traffic offenses.

Driven By Debt: How Driver’s License Suspensions for Unpaid Fines and Fees Hurt Texas Families

This report discusses the various ways debt-based driver’s license suspensions harm Texas drivers, especially those that are low-income and minorities.

Nine Facts about Monetary Sanctions in the Criminal Justice System

High expenditures in the criminal justice system have led some jurisdictions to rely on courts and law enforcement to generate new revenue. This report identifies nine facts about monetary sanctions …

Statutory Inequality: The Logics of Monetary Sanctions in State Law

This article analyzes Illinois laws to investigate the fines and fees people are expected to pay and what happens when they cannot afford to pay these costs.

State of Phone Justice: Local jails, state prisons and private phone providers

This policy brief from the Prison Policy Initiative provides an overview of prison and jail phone call fees and makes several recommendations to reform them.

(Color)blind Reform: How ability-to-pay determinations are inadequate to transform a racialized system of penal debt

This law review article argues that fines and fees reformers’ emphasis on instituting ability-to-pay determinations without any reductions in racially discriminatory ticketing may cause more harm than good. In particular, the author articulates a concern that ability-to-pay determinations risk legitimizing the existing system of monetary sanctions and entrenching damages inflicted upon people deemed ‘able to pay.’

It’s All About The Money: An Exploration of Probation Fees

Texas relies on supervision fees from probationers to recuperate operating costs for their probation program; failure to pay can result in additional sanctions and ultimately, revocations. This study used focus …