Texas Archives - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Forgotten But Not Gone: A Multi-State Analysis of Modern-Day Debt Imprisonment

The majority of states allow imprisonment as a direct result of failing to pay (FTP) court debt. This report presents findings from a three-state case study that sought to estimate the prevalence …

Predatory Fines and Fees: Revenue, Fiscal Contrition, and Policy Change

Some local jurisdictions are beginning to grapple with the social costs and individual harms associated with monetary sanctions and how they can become less reliant on them. This report clarifies …

The Cost of Parking: A Preliminary Analysis of Parking Tickets Data in Austin, Minneapolis, and Portland

Parking tickets can serve as an entry point to the criminal legal system when left unpaid, causing lifelong financial burdens. Additional consequences include suspended driver’s licenses, loss of voting rights, …

Estimating the Earnings Loss Associated With a Criminal Record and Suspended Driver’s License

Contact with the criminal legal system and sanctions such as driver’s license suspensions can result in limited employment opportunities and have lifelong impacts on a person’s potential earnings. To advance …

Is There a Link Between Criminal Debt and Recidivism in Reentry?

To determine whether legal financial obligations (LFOs) are criminogenic, the author analyzed a multistate data set from the Urban Institute’s Returning Home Studies. The study followed formerly incarcerated men through …

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. …

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. …

Incomparable Punishments: How Economic Inequality Contributes to the Disparate Impact of Legal Fines and Fees

In Texas, fines are the standard sentence for Class C misdemeanors encompassing most traffic, public order, city code, and other low-level infractions for which jail time is not statutorily permissible …

Speeding in Texas? New analysis reveals where police pulled over the most people

Small towns in Texas are using aggressive ticketing strategies on speeding drivers to raise revenue for their budgets. The Houston Chronicle analyzed traffic stop and ticketing numbers reported to the …

Driven by Debt: The Failure of the OmniBase Program

The OmniBase Failure to Appear Program places holds on license renewals (making it an offense to drive) when the license holder fails to pay fines and fees or fails to …