When the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court (“OPCDC”) orders a defendant to sign up for ankle monitoring, the defendant must choose from three private ankle monitoring providers operating in Orleans …
Mass incarceration and the rising cost of the justice system correlate with the high number and value of fines and fees imposed throughout the justice system. As federal funding for …
Many local governments rely on imposed fines, fees, and forfeitures to raise revenue without a financial policy. Doing so can reduce citizens’ trust in government, have a disproportionate impact on …
Privatization throughout the justice system has exacerbated the cycle of mandatory fees, nonpayment, and consequent additional fees. Private companies, often with little to no oversight, can have economic incentives to …
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.
In 1977 California counties received 74 percent of their own-source general funds from property tax, but after Proposition 13, counties’ property tax decreased by over 50 percent. Since the passage …
The concept of taxation by citation and its subsequent harms are dissected and analyzed in this Institute for Justice report. Through the profiling of three Georgia cities–Morrow, Riverdale, and Clarkston–the authors use traffic and ordinance violation data to suggest that these towns’ use of code enforcement power is geared towards revenue generation rather than public safety.
Caliste v. Cantrell 937 F.3d 525 (5th Cir. 2019). Issue: Whether there is a conflict of interest when a magistrate responsible for bail decisions is also responsible for generating and administrating …
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.