The Criminal Justice Debt Reform Builder is an online tool that allows users to quickly explore and assess fines and fees reform statutes in all 50 states.
This review of law and policy is the first-year report of a five-year study comprising quantitative and qualitative research that provides a detailed understanding of how fines and fees are imposed and enforced across the United States.
This report by the University of Minnesota’s Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice presents findings from a qualitative study examining the interaction between probation outcomes and probation fees in Texas.
In this article for Sociological Forum, Professors Kasey Hendricks and Daina Cheyenne Harvey examine whether Ferguson’s fines and fees practices are typical among local governments.
This report from the Berkeley Policy Advocacy Clinic details California counties’ practice of assessing and collecting fees from families with youth in the California juvenile justice system. California abolished juvenile fees in 2018.
Alexandra Bastien of PolicyLink describes how the imposition of criminal justice fines and fees disproportionately impacts people of color and low-income Americans.
Rebellious lawyering empowers those affected by the issue to come up with solutions to their own problems. It should be a collective effort between the lawyers and legal services clients and community members from grassroots organizing groups.
In this report, the Oklahoma Justice Reform Task Force investigated Oklahoma’s exploding incarceration rates and the judicial policies that contribute to prison overcrowding. The Task Force used their analysis to develop 27 policy recommendations aimed at improving public safety by reducing recidivism and reforming sentencing policies.
This joint report by Texas Appleseed and the Texas Fair Defense Project evaluates how often fine-only offenses - offenses punishable only by a fine and no jail sentence – in fact subject Texans to jail time and suspensions of driver’s licenses or the inability to renew a license or register a vehicle because of their inability to pay.
Oklahoma’s court system imposes fees for every type of case, and over the last two decades, those fees have grown enormously in both size and amount. Fees assessed on Oklahomans …