Racial Disparities Archives - Page 17 of 18 - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Confronting Criminal Justice Debt: The Urgent Need for Comprehensive Reform

This report is the first publication in a three-part series entitled “Confronting Criminal Justice Debt: A Comprehensive Project for Reform.” It provides an overview of the many types of fines and fees that the criminal justice system imposes and the collateral consequences that can result from them, with a particular emphasis on racial and economic disparities.

White House Forum on Access to Justice Panel: Fines & Fees – At the Intersection of Civil and Criminal Justice

In this video recording of a White House Forum on Access to Justice panel, FFJC Co-Director Lisa Foster (then Director of the Office of Access to Justice at the Department of Justice) moderates a panel about how fines and fees in the criminal justice system can lead to a myriad of civil woes for low-income Americans.

Stopped, Fined, Arrested: Racial Bias in Policing and Traffic Courts in California

In California, Black and Latino drivers are more likely to have their licenses suspended or be arrested for driving with a suspended license. This report examines the stark racial and …

Disenfranchised by Debt

This report discusses how criminal disenfranchisement laws prevent millions of people from regaining the right to vote because they cannot afford criminal legal fines and fees.

High Pain, No Gain: How Juvenile Administrative Fees Harm Low-Income Families in Alameda County, California

At the time this report was written, by California law, counties were authorized to recoup the costs of their juvenile justice systems by charging administrative fees to juvenile defendants and their families. This policy report takes a close look at Alameda County’s system of administrative fees.

Debtors’ Prison for Kids? The High Cost of Fines and Fees in the Juvenile Justice System

This report documents how and when youth and families face fines, fees and restitution and the economic and legal consequences for failure to pay.

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.

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 …

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.