Traffic Fines and Fees Archives - Fines and Fees Justice Center

Why Automated Speed Cameras Disproportionately Affect Black and Brown Drivers

Automated traffic enforcement is active in nearly 200 communities nationwide. In Chicago, Illinois, speed cameras have been in place since 2013. In 2023, the city generated an extra $120 million …

Debt Sentence: How Fines And Fees Hurt Working Families

This report shares the results of a national survey of over 5,600 adults to see how court-imposed fines and fees affect people across the country.

Fines and Financial Wellbeing

Unplanned financial shocks can have long-term effects on household finances. This article explores whether households can absorb unanticipated shocks by estimating the impacts of fines for traffic violations on household …

Arrested Mobility: Barriers To Walking, Biking, And E-Scooter Use In Black Communities In The United States

Inequitable infrastructure investment has created mobility obstacles and racially discriminatory policing in transportation for Black Americans and people of color. Although more than half of the nation’s most dangerous streets …

State Debt-Based Car Registration Suspension Laws

Each state has a law permitting the nonrenewal or cancellation of a car registration for nonpayment of a debt to the state or arising from a state-controlled system. Because every …

Police Killings and Municipal Reliance on Fine-and-Fee Revenue

Between 2016 and 2021, more than 400 unarmed people were killed by police during traffic stops. In addition, metropolitan areas that rely more on revenue from fines and fees experience …

The Cost of Parking: A Preliminary Analysis of Parking Tickets Data in Austin, Minneapolis, and Portland

Parking tickets can serve as an entry point to the criminal legal system when left unpaid, causing lifelong financial burdens. Additional consequences include suspended driver’s licenses, loss of voting rights, …

High-Frequency Location Data Shows That Race Affects The Likelihood of Being Stopped and Fined For Speeding

Prior research on race, speeding, and citations has focused on the effects of a driver’s race on the punishment received, never exploring whether race could also influence the probability of …

Regressive Revenue Perpetuates Poverty: Why Georgia’s Fines and Fees Need Immediate Reform

More than 300 localities in Georgia use revenue from fines and fees to balance their budgets, and 20 percent do so at rates researchers consider high and abusive. Georgians who …

How a Wealthy Cleveland Suburb Profits From Ticketing Black Drivers

Black Clevelanders say Bratenahl officers target them when they drive through the affluent and majority White village. From January to September 2022, almost all of the 1,006 tickets were issued …