Racial Disparities Archives - Page 11 of 18 - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Fines, Fees, Forfeitures, and Disparities: A Link Between Municipal Reliance on Fines and Racial Disparities in Policing

This research paper explores the relationship between a municipality's reliance on fines and fees and police behavior during traffic stops.

The High Costs of “Justice”: A Snapshot of Juvenile Court Fines and Fees in Michigan

Through information collected from counties, advocates, community members and court involved families, the National Center for Youth Law published this brief summarizing the impact of juvenile court fines and fees …

Pandemic lays bare North Carolina’s reliance on fines and fees

This report discusses the growth of fee revenue in North Carolina and how the pandemic has exposed pre-existing issues concerning the use of fine and fee revenue.

Probation and Monetary Sanctions in Georgia: Evidence from a Multi-Method Study

This article analyzes how monetary sanctions and probation supervision intersect in Georgia. Using data and interviews, gathered between 2015 and 2018, the authors find substantial variation between jurisdictions in the …

Escaping the Long Arm of the Law? Racial Disparities in the Effect of Failure-to- Pay License Suspension

This paper studies the unintended consequences of suspending driver’s licenses for failure to pay by examining the effect of suspension on the likelihood of receiving future tickets. Researchers followed defendants …

Advancing Financial Justice in San Francisco: The Experience and Lessons of the City’s Financial Justice Project

This paper summarizes the lessons, successes, and challenges of the San Francisco Financial Justice Project, especially concerning criminal justice fines and fees reform.

Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2019, Featuring Supplemental Data from April 2020

For the first time, the Federal Reserve collected information about how criminal legal debt from fines and fees affects American families.

Driving Toward Justice: How ending driver’s license suspensions for unpaid traffic tickets helps communities without impacting court collections

This brief describes reforms that were implemented after the San Francisco Superior Court’s decision to eliminate debt-based driver’s license suspensions.

The Explosion of Unpaid Criminal Fines and Fees in North Carolina

The amount of debt owed to North Carolina’s criminal courts has increased at a staggering rate. This report gives a scope of how much debt is uncollectible, identifies the people in the state most harmed by the current system, and pinpoints the case types that yield the lion’s share of this debt.

Fines and Monetary Sanctions

Alexes Harris, the author of this research papers, discusses various criminal legal system fines and fees and argues that imposing these costs can worsen social inequality.