UCLA Criminal Justice Law Review
The UCLA Criminal Justice Law Review (CJLR) has partnered with the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School to publish works from the Progressing Reform of Fees and Fines …
Collateral Consequences
Debt, Incarceration, and Re-Entry: A Scoping Review
Justice-involved people and their families are heavily burdened by debt: legal financial obligations (LFO) from criminal justice involvement, pre-existing debt that compounded during incarceration, and debts accrued during reentry. This …
The High Costs of “Justice”: A Snapshot of Juvenile Court Fines and Fees in Michigan
Through information collected from counties, advocates, community members and court involved families, the National Center for Youth Law published this brief summarizing the impact of juvenile court fines and fees …
Pandemic lays bare North Carolina’s reliance on fines and fees
This report discusses the growth of fee revenue in North Carolina and how the pandemic has exposed pre-existing issues concerning the use of fine and fee revenue.
Court Costs, Fines, And Fees Are Bad Policy- Recommendations For Illinois Legislators
This policy brief discusses the history and issues of court fines and fees nationally and specifically in Illinois.
Escaping the Long Arm of the Law? Racial Disparities in the Effect of Failure-to- Pay License Suspension
This paper studies the unintended consequences of suspending driver’s licenses for failure to pay by examining the effect of suspension on the likelihood of receiving future tickets. Researchers followed defendants …
Paying on Probation: How Financial Sanctions Intersect with Probation to Target, Trap, and Punish People Who Cannot Pay
This report shows how payment of fines and fees and supervision costs can affect a person's ability to complete their probation sentence.
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.
On Thin Ice: Bureaucratic Processes of Monetary Sanctions and Job Insecurity
This article shows how court debt collection practices affect employment opportunities based on research conducted in Illinois and Washington State.
Fines and Monetary Sanctions
Alexes Harris, the author of this research papers, discusses various criminal legal system fines and fees and argues that imposing these costs can worsen social inequality.