Tools Archives - Page 3 of 13 - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Poor Not Guilty: The Fines and Fees Challenge

Poor Not Guilty: The Fines and Fees Challenge is an interactive educational tool based on a series of real-life experiences that highlight how fines and fees for petty offenses often create impossible situations for those experiencing poverty and/or homelessness.

Local Policy Guide: Fee Elimination and Debt Relief

This local policy guide gives local leaders a recommended process for eliminating fees via local legislation, budgetary processes and through the courts.

Local Policy Guide: Make Jail Phone Calls Free and Eliminate Commissions and Kickbacks on Commissary Items

This local policy guide gives local leaders three reform pathways for ensuring incarcerated people have access to basic needs and free communication.

Resolve Traffic Debt: Advocate Toolkit

North Carolina automatically suspends a person’s driver’s license for failure to pay court fees or fines for a motor vehicle offense. Approximately 300,000 North Carolinians have long-term driver’s license suspensions …

Why We Need to Stop Suspending and Revoking Driver’s Licenses Due to Debt

The Prosperity Now Scorecard rates states on their progress toward racial economic justice in several policy areas. The 2022 policy update includes an assessment of which states have ended the …

Local Policy Guide: Reforming Debt-Based Driver’s License Suspensions at the Local Level

This guide is designed to give local leaders the tools, process and resources they need to reform debt-based driving restrictions at the local level.

Inequitable Fines and Fees Hurt Vulnerable Communities. Now, Policymakers Have an Opportunity For Reform.

Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals were forced to choose between paying fines and fees or their day-to-day needs. As the pandemic further exacerbated economic insecurity, many …

Four Ways to Improve Tennessee’s Criminal Fee and Fine Data Infrastructure

Tennessee has a complex system of fees and fines, and its decentralized court structure and inconsistent reporting exacerbate difficulties in tracking its full impact. This Sycamore Institute report aims to …

How to Use Budgets to Understand Criminal Justice Fines and Fees

The Vera Institute of Justice published a toolkit to help advocates analyze local budgets to better understand the impact of fines and fees and where reforms are needed. The publication …

National Center for Access to Justice Fines and Fees Index

In 2016, the National Center for Access to Justice debuted it’s Justice Index and in May 2020, it was updated for the second time. The Fines and Fees Index, an …