Civil Assessments: The Hidden Court Fee That Penalizes Poverty
California allows courts to charge a civil assessment fee of up to $300 to people who miss a deadline to pay or appear in court. An estimated 300,000 people receive …
Courts as Revenue Centers
Spiraling Criminal Debt
North Carolina in recent decades moved to a user- fee model allowing courts to impose any number of fines and fees when a criminal case is resolved through a plea …
Miles v. Craighead County
Issue: Whether costs and fees collected in amounts greater than what is permitted by law constitutes an illegal exaction. Holding: Yes, charging costs and fees not permitted by law …
Fowler v. Missouri Sheriffs’ Retirement System
Fowler v. Missouri Sheriffs’ Retirement System 623 S.W.3d 578 (2021) Issue: Whether the statute allowing counties and municipal courts to assess and collect a $3 surcharge that goes towards the Missouri …
The New Due Process: Fairness in a Fee-Driven State
Courts, prosecutors, and law enforcement work together to assess and collect fines, fees, and forfeitures that fund the justice system – a conflict of interest and a violation of due …
Why We Need to Stop Suspending and Revoking Driver’s Licenses Due to Debt
The Prosperity Now Scorecard rates states on their progress toward racial economic justice in several policy areas. The 2022 policy update includes an assessment of which states have ended the …
A Continuum of Coercive Costs: A State-Level Analysis of the Imposition and Payment Enforcement of Statutory Fees
In the past 40 years, states have dramatically increased the number of costs and fees to shift the financial burden of the criminal justice system from taxpayers to justice-involved individuals. …
Criminalizing Poverty: The Consequences of Court Fees in a Randomized Experiment
Using a randomized controlled trial of court related fee relief for misdemeanor defendants, the authors tested the hypothesis that financial obligations criminalize poverty and later court involvement results from an …
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. …
Police In This Tiny Alabama Town Suck Drivers Into Legal ‘Black Hole’
Brookside, a small town in Alabama with 1,253 residents and six miles of roads to patrol, has more than doubled its town’s income as fines and forfeitures rose 640 percent …