The Demand for Money Behind Many Traffic Stops
Cities and towns, often those with weakened tax bases or that are barred from easily raising revenue, use fines and fees to raise revenue. Over 730 municipalities rely on fines …
News
Jones v. Clark County
Jones v. Clark County 635 S.W.3d 54 (KY 2021) Issue: Whether the detention center’s policy of billing an inmate for fees accumulated during pretrial incarceration violated both the state and federal …
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. …
2021 Driving Injustice: Consequences and Disparities in North Carolina Legal and Traffic Debt
An increase in fines, fees, and license suspension for traffic tickets, infractions, and misdemeanors has created a vicious cycle of court debt. People who do not pay their debt within …
Part 1: Rethinking Local Government Revenue Systems
Most local governments depend on property taxes and sales taxes to raise revenue. Although property taxes are a stable source of revenue for local governments, property taxes have decreased. Municipalities …
Reimagining local public finance: Equitable Reform of taxes, fines and fees
While the American Recovery Plan Act provides local governors flexible funds to replace revenue lost due to the pandemic, local governments should take this opportunity not just to replace revenues, …
Parking fines no longer pay the city’s bills
The city of Los Angeles’ traffic enforcement division use to generate $20 million of net income. For the past five years, fines from parking tickets generated over $617 million for …
The predatory dimensions of criminal justice
Throughout American history, criminal justice has played a critical role in resource extraction from slave patrols to convict leasing, chain gangs and exploitative debt, credit and labor arrangements. Today, as …
Cato’s Project on Poverty and Inequality in California: Final Report
California has the largest economy of any state and a gross domestic product of almost $3 trillion. However, before the pandemic, 17.2 percent of the state population lived below the …
Florida HB257: An act relating to the elimination of court-related financial obligations for juveniles
The Florida legislature recently introduced a bill eliminating fees assessed to juveniles. Balances of any court fees owed by a child, young adult, or a child’s parent or legal guardian …