Public Safety Archives - Page 2 of 11 - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Rethinking How Law Enforcement Is Deployed

To mitigate the risk of harm, municipalities have tasked non-law enforcement responders with addressing nonviolent social and medical issues and narrowed police discretion and duties in traffic enforcement. Many have …

Redesigning Public Safety: Traffic Safety

Traffic stops are the most common reason for contact with the police in the United States, burdening Black drivers who disproportionately experience harassment and racial profiling. Along with being subject …

Crime Survivors Speak 2022: National Survey Of Victims’ Views On Safety And Justice

Over 60 percent of people have been a victim of crime in the past decade, and half of them have been victims of a violent crime. As justice policy takes …

Policing-for-Profit Undermines Public Safety. This Town Shows A Better Way

Relying on tickets to fund government is counterproductive to public safety and can erode trust between community and law enforcement while worsening long-standing economic inequalities when residents can’t afford to …

Taking on Traffic Laws: A How-To Guide for Decriminalizing Mobility

Policy, planning, and funding decisions have left primarily Black and low-income communities without safe infrastructure for biking and walking and created conditions forcing people to make choices that cities have …

Race Representation and Revenue: Reliance on Fines and Forfeitures in City Governments

The Department of Justice’s Ferguson report suggests cities with a higher population of Black people and an overrepresentation of White people in their law enforcement agencies levy fines at higher …

The Hidden Costs of Pretrial Detention Revisited

Using data from over 1 million people booked into a jail in Kentucky between 2009 and 2018, this study investigates the relationship between pretrial detention and failure to appear, rearrest, …

Resolve Traffic Debt: Advocate Toolkit

North Carolina automatically suspends a person’s driver’s license for failure to pay court fees or fines for a motor vehicle offense. Approximately 300,000 North Carolinians have long-term driver’s license suspensions …

The Impact of Fines, Fees, and Forfeitures on Policing

Law enforcement agencies across the nation, like many local and state governments, rely on fines, fees, and forfeitures for funding. The heavy fines, parking citations and unnecessary incarceration that result …

Is There a Link Between Criminal Debt and Recidivism in Reentry?

To determine whether legal financial obligations (LFOs) are criminogenic, the author analyzed a multistate data set from the Urban Institute’s Returning Home Studies. The study followed formerly incarcerated men through …