Driving for Opportunity Act of 2020
The act permits the Attorney General to make grants to states in order to cover the costs of reinstating driver’s licenses previously suspended for unpaid fines and fees. The bill …
COVID-19 Crisis: FFJC Policy Recommendations and Policy Tracker
FFJC has released a set of policy recommendations to help stem the harms of this ongoing public health and economic crisis. This page also tracks state and local fines and fees reform efforts undertaken in response to coronavirus.
COVID-19 Crisis: Advocacy Materials
FFJC is compiling advocacy materials for organizations and community members across America who are working toward fines and fees policy changes in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Below, you can …
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.
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.
Ethical Obligations of Judges in Collecting Legal Financial Obligations and Other Debts
This opinion from the American Bar Association addresses the obligations judges have to assess ability to pay when collecting fines and fees.
Proportionate Financial Sanctions: Policy Prescriptions for Judicial Reform
In this report, the Criminal Justice Policy Program (CJPP) at Harvard Law School proposes a framework where courts would impose means-adjusted fines as a proportionate sentence for an offense. The authors assert that by adopting the proposed recommendations, courts can ease or prevent the worst harms that excessive financial sanctions create for poor people without waiting for legislative reforms.
Addicted to Fines: Small towns in much of the country are dangerously dependent on punitive fines and fees
This GOVERNING report presents the findings of a nationwide analysis of several jurisdictions' fine and fee revenue rates and how much of this funding source supports general budgets.
Can’t Pay, Can’t Vote: A National Survey On The Modern Poll Tax
Felony convictions and court debt have become barriers to restoring voting rights for millions of people living in the U.S. This report provides a history of poll taxes and explains how felony disenfranchisement serves as a barrier perpetuating the same inequality-producing results: African-Americans and poor people lose the right to vote and struggle to regain voting rights at disproportionate rates.
Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act of 2019
The Martha Wright-Reed Just and Reasonable Communications Act clarifies that the Federal Communications Commission – an agency housed within the Executive branch of the federal government – has the legal authority to stop prison phone companies from charging exorbitant fees to incarcerated people.