Parking fines no longer pay the city’s bills
The city of Los Angeles’ traffic enforcement division use to generate $20 million of net income. For the past five years, fines from parking tickets generated over $617 million for …
Traffic Fines and Fees
Dismantling Policing for Profit: How to Build on Missouri’s Post-Ferguson Court Reforms
After the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, the Department of Justice (DOJ) found Ferguson’s focus on generating revenue over public safety, along with racial …
Step One to an Antiracist State Revenue Policy: Eliminate Criminal Justice Fees and Reform Fines
Many state revenue policies are rooted in racist history and continue to worsen racial inequities and harm public safety. For example, the white supremacist group, the Redeemers, took political power …
San Francisco’s Financial Justice Project: Reducing the burden of fines and fees on San Franciscans with low incomes
San Francisco’s cost of living has drastically risen over the past decade, and 47 percent of San Franciscans are financially insecure. To address harmful fines and fees practices, San Francisco …
Speeding in Texas? New analysis reveals where police pulled over the most people
Small towns in Texas are using aggressive ticketing strategies on speeding drivers to raise revenue for their budgets. The Houston Chronicle analyzed traffic stop and ticketing numbers reported to the …
Driven by Debt: The Failure of the OmniBase Program
The OmniBase Failure to Appear Program places holds on license renewals (making it an offense to drive) when the license holder fails to pay fines and fees or fails to …
D.C. parking, traffic tickets snowball into financial hardships
The Washington Post analyzed patterns of moving violations from red light cameras, parking tickets and police stops between 2016 and 2021 in the District of Columbia. The article highlights findings …
Cycles of Debt: Research Indicates That Driver’s License Suspensions Over Unpaid Fines Targets Black Drivers
In the first-ever study of failure-to-pay suspensions in the United States, researchers Sian Mughan and Joanna Carroll examined a sample of over 2000 drivers who received traffic tickets in Marion …
Colorado House Bill 21-1314
Colorado passed a bill repealing the authority of the Department of Revenue to cancel, renew or reinstate a driver’s license for failure to pay an outstanding monetary judgement. The bill also prohibits …
Delaware HB 244: An act to amend the code relating to fines, fees, costs, assessments, and restitution
The Delaware legislature introduced a bill to eliminate a number of fines and fees including fines and costs in juvenile delinquency proceedings, the public defender fee, and the probation supervision …