New York Archives - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Predation and the Disproportionate Risk of Driver’s License Suspensions in Economically and Racially Marginalized Communities

Driver’s license suspensions for non-safety reasons such as failure to appear or failure to pay exploit vulnerable groups in order to fill state and local budgets. Analyzing Department of Motor …

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Which Town and Village Courts Collect The Most Fines and Fees in NY And CNY?

According to the State Comptroller’s Office, in 2022, New York’s nearly 1,200 towns and villages collected $189 million in fines, fees, and surcharges from traffic tickets, penalties imposed in criminal …

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Memorandum: Total Cost of Three Selected Categories of Unpaid Fines and Charges in New York City

Over $2 billion of unpaid penalties from a six-year period is due to New York City. The Independent Budget Office (IBO) calculated the total amount of unpaid fines and charges …

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Increasing Justice In New York: How New York Could Go From Failing to First in the Nation on the Fines and Fees Justice Index

With dozens of fees and fines at every stage of the legal system, New York has created a two-tiered justice system that engulfs low-income people in the criminal legal system. …

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Surviving Austerity: Commissary Stores, Inequality and Punishment In The Contemporary American Prison

As mass incarceration exploded in the 1980s, so did fiscal austerity, leading to the use of monetary sanctions and user fees to shift the financial burden from taxpayers to those …

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Eliminating Discriminatory Fines and Fees: Learning from San Franscisco

In New York City, fines and fees provide the city with more than $2 billion in revenue each year. However, many of these fines and fees fall on lower income …

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How Corporations Turned Prison Tablets Into a Predatory Scheme

Tablets have become another commodity that predatory corporations use to price gouge incarcerated people. In 2017, JPay distributed free mini-tablets to the prison population in New York, providing access to …

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What is Wrong with Monetary Sanctions?: Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research

Each year tens of millions of people are assessed fines, fees, and other costs stemming from their contacts with the criminal legal system, ranging from felony convictions to traffic violations. …

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What Is Wrong with Monetary Sanctions? Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research

Monetary sanctions are an increasing form of punishment for criminal offenses that have generated billions of dollars in revenue while also generating massive amounts of penal debt for low-income individuals. …

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Blood From a Stone: How New York Prisons Force People To Pay For Their Own Incarceration

The prison system amplifies the lack of commissary access to basic needs and telecommunications for the most disadvantaged people in prison and drains financial resources from them and their families. …

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