Sharecropper Finance: Using the Justice System as a Public Revenue Source
This article compares the fines and fees practices of Ferguson, Missouri and other municipal governments with the older economic technique of sharecropping.
Courts as Revenue Centers
Nickel and Dimed into Incarceration: Cash-Register Justice in the Criminal System
The article provides an overview of criminal justice fines and fees; applies the Sixth Amendment jury trial right to these fines and fees; considers the question of “when criminal justice debt rises to the level of punishment; and suggests several solutions to the problem.
Missouri SB 572: Modifies various provisions regarding municipalities located in St. Louis County, nuisance abatement ordinances, disincorporation procedures for various cities, and municipal courts
This Act reduces the amount of fees charged to individuals who receive a minor traffic or municipal ordinance violation and changes the procedure for charging fines and fees to people who receive minor traffic or municipal ordinance violations.
Alabama judge forced defendants with court debt to give blood or go to jail
On September 17, 2015, Alabama Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins opened his court session by giving two options to people who did not have the money to pay their court fines and fees: give blood, or go to jail.
Taxing the Poor: Incarceration, Poverty Governance, and the Seizure of Family Resources
To finance its carceral system, the United States government levies taxes on the country’s most impoverished strata. Although those involved in the justice system are typically low-income individuals, they are …
Why Crime Doesn’t Pay: Examining Felony Collections
This research paper “examines the contributing factors which make collection of felony fines and [fees in Florida] significantly lower than collections for all other case types” and analyzes why felony collection enforcement is especially difficult.
Not Just a Ferguson Problem: How Traffic Courts Drive Inequality in California
This 2015 report provides a comprehensive overview of how California’s approach to the enforcement of fines and fees for traffic violations creates a two-tiered justice system—those who can afford to pay escape the system, while those who are too poor to pay are trapped.
Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department
After Michael Brown was shot by a member of the Ferguson Police Department, the Department of Justice’s investigation uncovered a pattern of racially discriminatory practices by the Ferguson Police Department which were primarily rooted in the city’s dependence on the criminal justice system to raise revenue. The publication of the Ferguson report is widely viewed as the start of the movement to reform fines and fees in the U.S.
Missouri SB 5: Modifies distribution of traffic fines and court costs collected by municipal courts
This Act significantly modifies various provisions related to local government revenue in Missouri, including the imposition and enforcement of fines and fees in municipal courts. The Act imposed a 20% cap on municipal court revenue from fines and fees everywhere in the state except St. Louis County, where the cap was 12.5%.
Unified But Not Uniform: Judicial Funding Issues in Alabama
This study explains how the current lack of uniformity in funding of Alabama’s courts, even after the 1973 establishment of the Unified Judicial System (UJS), warrants a second wave of reform.