Public Safety Archives - Page 9 of 11 - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Monetary Myopia: An Examination of Institutional Response to Revenue From Monetary Sanctions for Misdemeanors

This study assesses the use of fines and fees for misdemeanor crimes in Nevada and Iowa to highlight the perverse incentives embedded in the practice of using courts as revenue centers. The article proposes the concept of “monetary myopia,” or a short-sighted focus on revenue at the expense of other concerns, to explain the states’ behavior.

Fines, Fees, and the Poverty Penalty

This issue brief discusses how fines and fees harm communities and puts forward several strategies that prosecutors can use to mitigate these harms.

Targeted Fines and Fees Against Communities of Color

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a landmark report detailing the disproportionate harms that communities of color suffer from fines and fees.

Driving Into Debt: The Need For Traffic Ticket Fee Reform

This report explains how the California courts’ interest in revenue collection causes a burden of debt for citizens and recommends alternatives to traditional collection methods that raise more revenue while causing less harm.

Paying More for Being Poor: Bias and Disparity in California’s Traffic Court System

This report is based on the authors’ research on traffic courts and driver’s license suspension practices in the San Francisco Bay Area. It details how much revenue courts collect from fines and fees, the harmful impacts those fees have on low-income Californians, and also advances several policy reform recommendations.

Pay or Stay: The High Cost of Jailing Texans for Fines and Fees

This joint report by Texas Appleseed and the Texas Fair Defense Project evaluates how often fine-only offenses - offenses punishable only by a fine and no jail sentence – in fact subject Texans to jail time and suspensions of driver’s licenses or the inability to renew a license or register a vehicle because of their inability to pay.

Graduating Economic Sanctions According to Ability to Pay

This article focuses on a potential reform with increasing bipartisan support: the graduation of economic sanctions according to a person’s financial circumstances, also known as "day fines" or "means-adjusted fines."

Reinventing Community Corrections

This article discusses the history of criminal justice supervision and why parole and probation is an afterthought to some stakeholders when they consider rehabilitation programs for people convicted of crimes.

Out of Ferguson: Misdemeanors, Municipal Courts, Tax Distribution and Constitutional Limitations

In this five-part research paper, Professors from Saint Louis University’s School of Law examine the “economic impact of discriminatory municipal law enforcement” in St. Louis County, Missouri.

Research Note: Justice System–Imposed Financial Penalties Increase the Likelihood of Recidivism in a Sample of Adolescent Offenders

The authors of this study analyze the effects of financial penalties (fines, fees, and restitution) two years after being imposed on 1,167 youth with a supervision status of adjudicated delinquent …