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Date: April 19, 2024 Fri
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Results for fines
17 results foundAuthor: Northern Ireland. Criminal Justice Inspection Title: The Enforcement of Fines Summary: This inspection examines the ability of the current policy and procedures of the Northern Ireland criminal justice system to deliver an effective and professional approach to fine enforcement. Details: Belfast: Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland, 2010. 36p. Source: Year: 2010 Country: United Kingdom URL: Shelf Number: 117872 Keywords: Fines |
Author: Diller, Rebekah Title: The Hidden Costs of Florida's Criminal Justice Fees Summary: Increasingly, states are turning to so-called “user fees” and surcharges to underwrite criminal justice costs and close budget gaps. In this report, we focus on Florida, a state that relies so heavily on fees to fund its courts that observers have coined a term for it – “cash register justice.” Since 1996, Florida added more than 20 new categories of financial obligations for criminal defendants and, at the same time, eliminated most exemptions for those who cannot pay. The fee increases have not been accompanied by any evident consideration of their hidden costs: the cumulative impacts on those required to pay, the ways in which the debt can lead to new offenses, and the costs to counties, clerks and courts of collection mechanisms that fail to exempt those unable to pay. This report examines the impact of the Florida Legislature’s decision to levy more user fees on persons accused and convicted of crimes, without providing exemptions for the indigent. Its conclusions are troubling. Florida relies heavily on fees to underwrite its criminal justice system and, at times, uses monies generated by fees to subsidize general revenue. In many cases, the debts are uncollectible; performance standards for court clerks, for example, expect that only 9 percent of fees levied in felony cases will be collected. Yet, aggressive collection practices result in a range of collateral consequences. Missed payments produce more fees. Unpaid costs prompt the suspension of driving privileges (and, relatedly, the ability to get to work). Moreover, collection practices are not uniform across the state. Court clerks have most of the responsibility. In some judicial circuits, the courts themselves take a more active role. At their worst, collection practices can lead to a new variation of “debtors’ prison” when individuals are arrested and incarcerated for failing to appear in court to explain missed payments. As most prisons and jails are at capacity, and unemployment and economic hardship are widespread, it is time to consider whether heaping more debt on those unable to afford it is a sensible approach to financing essential state functions. Details: New York: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, 2010. 42p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 11, 2010 at: http://www.brennancenter.org/page/-/Justice/FloridaF%26F.pdf?nocdn=1 Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://www.brennancenter.org/page/-/Justice/FloridaF%26F.pdf?nocdn=1 Shelf Number: 119919 Keywords: CourtsFinesSupervision FeesUser Fees |
Author: Reynolds, Carl Title: A Framework to Improve How Fines, Fees, Restitution, and Child Support are Assessed and Collected from People Convicted of Crimes. Interim Report, March 2, 2009. Summary: This report describes how fines, fees, and restitution are assessed in criminal courts in Texas, how these court-ordered financial obligations are collected, and how these assessments and collections account for child support that defendants may already owe. The report reviews the challenges court officials encounter under the current system and recommends strategies to clarify and streamline existing policies. Using the findings and recommendations in this report, state and local government policymakers can launch an effort to increase financial accountability among people who commit crimes, improve rates of collection for child support and victim restitution, and ensure people’s transition from prisons and jails to the community is safe and successful. Details: New York: Council of State Governments Justice Center: Austin, TX: Texas Office of Court Administration, 2009. 90p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 14, 2010 at: http://www.courts.state.tx.us/oca/debts/pdf/TexasFinancialObligationsInterimReport.pdf Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: http://www.courts.state.tx.us/oca/debts/pdf/TexasFinancialObligationsInterimReport.pdf Shelf Number: 119962 Keywords: FinesReentryRestitution |
Author: Piehl, Anne Morrison Title: Institutional Requirements for Effective Imposition of Fines Summary: A long theoretical literature in economics addresses the heavy reliance of the U.S. criminal justice system on very expensive forms of punishment – prison – when cheaper alternatives – such as fines and other sanctions – are available. This paper analyzes the role of fines as a criminal sanction within the existing institutional structure of criminal justice agencies, modeling heterogeneity in how people respond to various sanctions and threat of sanctions. From research on the application of fines in the U.S., we conclude that fines are economical only in relation to other forms of punishment; for many crimes fines will work well for the majority of offenders but fail miserably for a significant minority; that fines present a number of very significant administrative challenges; and that the political economy of fine imposition and collection is complex. Despite these facts, and with the caveats that jurisdictions vary tremendously and that there are large gaps in our knowledge about them, we build a model showing that it is possible to expand the use of fines as a criminal sanction if institutional structures are developed with these concerns in mind. Details: Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2010. 35p. Source: Internet Resource: NBER Working Paper Series, Working Paper 16476: Accessed October 18, 2010 at: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16476.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16476.pdf Shelf Number: 120007 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationFines |
Author: Barbour, Bruce: NSW Ombudsman Title: Review of the Impact of Criminal Infringement Notices on Aboriginal Communities Summary: Criminal Infringement Notices (CINs) provide police with an easy, additional option for dealing with adults who are suspected of certain minor offences that are usually characterised as criminal in nature. After a five-year trial in which 9,452 CINs were issued, the scheme was extended beyond the 12 trial locations to the rest of NSW in late 2007. In the first full year of state-wide use, 8,681 CINs were issued – most for just three offences: offensive conduct, offensive language and shoplifting. By contrast, an estimated 17,000 offences can be dealt with by penalty notice in NSW. In 2008, police records show that more than 500,000 penalty notices were issued to suspects aged 18 years and over. This was in addition to 170,000 criminal charges. The State Debt Recovery Office (SDRO) is the agency responsible for collecting penalty notice payments and taking enforcement action against those who do not pay. The SDRO estimates that the 18,133 CINs issued between 1 September 2002 and 31 October 2008 represent just 0.1% of the 15 million penalty notices that it processed in that period. While CINs make up just a small portion of police and SDRO business, the consequences for individual CIN recipients can be significant. Delays in paying a $150 CIN penalty for swearing or $300 penalty for shoplifting will usually result in enforcement action, adding an extra $50 in costs to each penalty notice, plus another $40 for each time that enforcement action involves an RTA sanction. Penalties and costs can quickly accumulate. Recipients who elect to have their CIN heard at court risk incurring a criminal record, a harsher penalty, additional costs and the stresses associated with the prosecution process. To the extent that CINs can divert petty offenders who would otherwise have been arrested, charged and brought before the courts, there are clear diversionary benefits. Paying the fixed penalty in the time allowed finalises the matter, providing a sanction to punish one-off misdemeanours without the recipient incurring a criminal record. There are also savings for police, courts and others involved in the judicial process. At the same time, the scheme preserves the right for recipients to elect to have their CIN determined by a court. Yet there are also risks associated with the use of CINs. These include risks of net increases in sanctions, in that some offenders may be issued with CINs in circumstances where previously they would have been warned or cautioned, risks that recipients might not court-elect or request an internal review despite having strong grounds to do so, and risks that recipients may simply ignore the penalty notice and become entrenched in the fines enforcement system - thereby incurring further debts, RTA sanctions and an increased likelihood of becoming involved in secondary offending. Our review has found that these pitfalls are particularly acute for Aboriginal people, who are already over-represented in the criminal justice system. The number of CINs issued to Aboriginal people has grown significantly since the scheme was extended state-wide, with Aboriginal suspects now accounting for 7.4% of all CINs issued, much higher than would be expected for a group that makes up just over 2% of the total NSW population. We also found that Aboriginal people are less likely to request a review or elect to have the matter heard at court, and that nine out of every 10 Aboriginal people issued with a CIN failed to pay within the time allowed, resulting in much higher numbers of these recipients becoming entrenched in the fines enforcement system. The impact of CINs and CIN-related debts on Aboriginal communities must be considered in the context of broader fines processes. During this review, Parliament approved important changes to the Fines Act 1996 that aim to reduce the negative impacts of the fines system on marginalised sections of the community, including Aboriginal people. Details: Sydney: New South Wales Ombudsman, 2009. 159p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 25, 2010 at: http://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au/publication/PDF/other%20reports/FR_CINs_ATSI_review_Aug09.pdf Year: 2009 Country: Australia URL: http://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au/publication/PDF/other%20reports/FR_CINs_ATSI_review_Aug09.pdf Shelf Number: 120074 Keywords: FinesIndigenous OffendersMisdemeanorsNuisance Behaviors and DisordersPublic Order OffensesShoplifting |
Author: Larence, Eileen R. Title: Criminal Cartel Enforcement: Stakeholder Views on Impact of 2004 Antitrust Reform Are Mixed, but Support Whistleblower Protection Summary: Criminal cartel activity, such as competitors conspiring to set prices, can harm consumers and the U.S. economy through lack of competition and overcharges. The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division’s leniency program offers the possibility that the first individual or company that self-reports cartel activity will avoid criminal conviction and penalties. In 2004, the Antitrust Criminal Penalty Enhancement and Reform Act (ACPERA) was enacted to encourage such reporting. The 2010 reauthorization mandated that GAO study ACPERA’s effect. This report addresses (1) the extent that ACPERA affected DOJ’s criminal cartel enforcement, (2) the ways ACPERA has reportedly affected private civil actions, and (3) key stakeholder perspectives on rewards and antiretaliatory protection for whistleblowers reporting criminal antitrust violations. GAO analyzed DOJ data on criminal cartel cases (1993-2010) and interviewed DOJ officials. GAO also interviewed a nongeneralizable sample of plaintiffs’ and defense attorneys from 17 civil cases and key stakeholders including other antitrust attorneys selected using a snowball sampling technique whereby GAO identified contacts through referrals. What GAO Recommends -- Congress may wish to consider an amendment to add a civil remedy for those who are retaliated against for reporting criminal antitrust violations. DOJ generally agreed with GAO’s findings but did not comment on this matter. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. GAO, 2011. 76p. Source: Internet Resource: GAO-11-619: Accessed July 26, 2011 at: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11619.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11619.pdf Shelf Number: 122164 Keywords: AntitrustCriminal CartelsFinesFraudWhistleblowers |
Author: Tran-Leung, Marie Claire Title: Debt Arising From Illinois’ Criminal Justice System: Making Sense of the Ad Hoc Accumulation of Financial Obligations Summary: When a person enters the criminal justice system, a complicated, ad hoc system of financial obligations awaits. The financial obligations go by many different names: fines, fees, surcharges, assessments, restitution, just to name a few. And they are scattered through the Illinois Code, making them even more difficult to identify. Yet, when a person exits the criminal justice system, all of these financial obligations often converge to create a significant barrier to successful reentry. As the government branch responsible for collecting and disbursing these financial obligations, the Illinois judiciary has long recognized how complicated the system of financial obligations is. In describing the “plethora of user fees and surcharges,” Chief Justice Benjamin K. Miller of the Illinois Supreme Court remarked in 1991: “The complexity of the structure of various charges is such that they are not uniform and are confusing. It has been impossible for the court system to apply the charge in a consistent and coherent manner.” Little has changed in the last eighteen years. Today, the Administrative Office of Illinois Courts distributes to chief judges the Manual on Fines and Fees, a 500-page cheat sheet of all civil and criminal financial obligations authorized by Illinois statutes and the different funds they flow into. The universe of financial obligations is best classified by their purpose. Restitution, for example, compensates victims for their losses and attempts to make them whole. Fines punish the defendant for his actual conduct. Traditionally, courts calibrate restitution and fines to the particular facts of a case. By contrast, fees, the third and last type of financial obligation, tend not to be so refined. Instead, they usually aim to recover the costs incurred by the government in running the criminal justice system. When viewed in isolation, each financial obligation seems unobjectionable. They do not, however, operate in isolation. Rather, they accumulate at multiple points from the pre-trial stage to the last day of correctional supervision, creating significant debt for people who eventually exit the criminal justice system. In a study of men returning home to Chicago after being incarcerated in Illinois prisons, one out of five men reported owing money because of child support, fines, restitution, court costs, supervision fees, and other types of financial obligations. Of this group, nearly three-fourths found those debts difficult to pay down. Details: Chicago: Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, 2009. 42p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 25, 2011 at: http://www.povertylaw.org/advocacy/publications/debt-report.pdf Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: http://www.povertylaw.org/advocacy/publications/debt-report.pdf Shelf Number: 123138 Keywords: Ex-Offenders, DebtsFeesFinesOffenders, Financial ObligationsRestitution |
Author: Yeh, Brian T. Title: Drug Offenses: Maximum Fines and Terms of Imprisonment for Violation of the Federal Controlled Substances Act and Related Laws Summary: This is a chart of the maximum fines and terms of imprisonment that may be imposed as a consequence of conviction for violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) and other drug supply and drug demand related laws. It lists the penalties for: heroin, cocaine, crack, PCP, LSD, marihuana (marijuana), amphetamine, methamphetamine, listed (precursor) chemicals, paraphernalia, date rape drugs, rave drugs, designer drugs, ecstasy, drug kingpins, as well as the other substances including narcotics and opiates assigned to Schedule I, Schedule II, Schedule III, Schedule IV, and Schedule V of the Controlled Substances Act and the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act (Title II and Title III of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act). Details: Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2011. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: RL30722: Accessed January 12, 2012 at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30722.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL30722.pdf Shelf Number: 123561 Keywords: Drug OffendersDrug OffensesDrug SmugglingDrug TraffickingFinesImprisonmentPunishment |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio Title: The Outskirts of Hope: How Ohio’s Debtors’ Prisons Are Ruining Lives and Costing Communities Summary: During his January 8, 1964 State of the Union address, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the launch of a “War on Poverty.” This announcement led to new programs that provided greater access to education, job training, and social assistance for financially disadvantaged people. New awareness campaigns were also launched to raise the profile of both urban and rural Americans caught in the vicious cycle of poverty, struggling to make ends meet with nearly no hope for escape. Nearly 50 years after President Johnson’s speech, poverty in America has not dissipated. In Ohio, the percentage of people living in poverty has actually grown. In 1969, 10% of the state’s population lived in poverty. By 2012, that number had risen to 16.4%.2 As in 1964, generational poverty is all too common in both rural and urban areas, but there is also a new class of suburban poor. Fueled by severe economic hemorrhaging, the number of people living in poverty in Ohio grew by 57.7% from 1999 to 2011, with the largest increase coming from suburban counties. This same phenomenon occurred throughout the Midwest, with concentrated poverty nearly doubling in Midwestern metropolitan areas between 2000 and 2009. The plight of the poor becomes both more difficult and more obvious when they have contact with the criminal justice system, where people with fewer resources often receive correspondingly worse treatment. Those in poverty cannot afford private counsel to negotiate favorable sentences. Instead, they face criminal charges with representation from overworked and underresourced public defenders. When facing only misdemeanor charges, they may have no attorneys at all. Regardless of whether or not charges could result in jail time, defendants often come away with a mountain of harsh fines and fees. For people who live paycheck to paycheck, it may be nearly impossible to pay them. The resurgence of contemporary debtors’ prisons sits squarely at this intersection of poverty and criminal justice. While this term conjures up images of Victorian England, the research and personal stories in this report illustrate that debtors’ prisons remain all too common in 21st century Ohio. In towns across the state, thousands of people face the looming specter of incarceration every day, simply because they are poor. Taking care of a fine is straightforward for some Ohioans — having been convicted of a criminal or traffic offense and sentenced to pay a fine, an affluent defendant may simply pay it and go on with his or her life. For Ohio’s poor and working poor, by contrast, an unaffordable fine is just the beginning of a protracted process that may involve contempt charges, mounting fees, arrest warrants, and even jail time. The stark reality is that, in 2013, Ohioans are being repeatedly jailed simply for being too poor to pay fines. Details: Cleveland: ACLU of Ohio, 2013. 24p Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 17, 2013 at: http://www.acluohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/TheOutskirtsOfHope2013_04.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.acluohio.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/TheOutskirtsOfHope2013_04.pdf Shelf Number: 128391 Keywords: FinesPoverty (Ohio, U.S.)Socioeconomic Conditions |
Author: Ashworth, Andrew Title: What if Imprisonment were Abolished for Property Offences? Summary: As part of our 'What if?' series, Professor Andrew Ashworth, Vinerian Professor of English Law at All Souls College, Oxford University, asks 'What if imprisonment were abolished for property offences?' He argues that deprivation of liberty is a disproportionate response for an offence that deprives people of their property. The paper considers both fines and community sentences as alternative sentencing options. In essence, the paper argues for fair and proportional sentencing, which, if the proposal were adopted, would have far-reaching consequences for the penal system, and a significant impact on the size of the prison population in England and Wales. Details: London: Howard League for Penal Reform, 2013. 18p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 28, 2013 at: http://www.howardleague.org/propertyoffences/ Year: 2013 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.howardleague.org/propertyoffences/ Shelf Number: 131491 Keywords: Alternatives to Incarceration (U.K.)Community Based CorrectionsFines |
Author: Donna, Javier Title: Let the Punishment Fit the Criminal Summary: We investigate the role of punishment progressivity and individual characteristics in the determination of crime. To analyze welfare implications we model individuals' response to judges' optimal punishment in a dynamic setting. We introduce two distinctive features motivated by our empirical setting. First, judges rarely imposes maximum punishment for first time offenders. Instead, we observe low fines (or just a warning) even when crime detection technology is efficient and punishment is not costly. We account for this by allowing an unobservable (to the judge) individual state to be correlated with a public signal (the environment). This generates an optimal punishment that is conditional on individual observables. Second, judges punishments follow a progressive system: conditioning on type, recidivists are punished harsher than first-time offenders for the same crime. We account for these dynamics by introducing a persistent unobservable (to the judge) component. Judges update their beliefs about individuals depending on whether they committed a crime in the previous period; this gives rise to progressivity in the optimal punishment system. For the empirical analysis we examine a novel trial data set from a self-governed community of farmers in Southern Spain. We find that judges vary the degree of imposed punishments based on individual characteristics - such as when victims or accused have a Don honorific title indicating they are wealthy. Recidivists are punished harsher than first time offenders. Details: Working Paper, 2013. 23p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 19, 2015 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2667588 Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2667588 Shelf Number: 137014 Keywords: FinesPunishmentSentencing |
Author: Council of Economic Advisors Title: Fines, Fees, and Bail: Payments in the Criminal Justice System That Disproportionately Impact the Poor Summary: Much of public discussion about the need for criminal justice system reform has focused on the dramatic growth in the size of the incarcerated population, as the number of Americans behind bars is now approximately 2.2 million. At the same time, concerns are growing about the expanding use of monetary penalties, which disproportionately impact poor defendants and offenders. Crime imposes real costs on society in terms of both the harm done to victims and in resources that must be allocated to policing, prosecution and incarceration. Increases in criminal justice spending have put a strain on local criminal justice budgets and led to the broader use of fine penalties and itemized criminal justice fees in an effort to support budgets. However, this practice places large burdens on poor offenders who are unable to pay criminal justice debts and, because many offenders assigned monetary penalties fall into this category, has largely been ineffective in raising revenues. Similarly, the growing use of fixed bail bonds as a condition for pretrial release has contributed to growth in jail populations, and often results in localities detaining the poorest rather than the most dangerous defendants. In this brief, we examine three common types of monetary payments in the criminal justice system: - Fines are monetary punishments for infractions, misdemeanors or felonies. Fines are intended to deter crime, punish offenders, and compensate victims for losses. - Fees are itemized payments for court activities, supervision, or incarceration charged to defendants determined guilty of infractions, misdemeanors or felonies. Fee collections are intended to support operational costs in the criminal justice system and may also be used to compensate victims for losses. Fees may also have a punitive and deterrent purpose, but are not designed to cater to specific offense categories. - Bail is a bond payment for a defendant's release from jail prior to court proceedings, and the majority of a bail payment is returned to a defendant after case disposition. Bail payments are intended to incentivize defendants to appear at court and, in some cases, to reduce the criminal risk of returning a defendant to the community. Details: Washington, DC: Council of Economic Advisors, 2015. 15p. Source: Internet Resource: Issue Brief: Accessed April 5, 2016 at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/1215_cea_fine_fee_bail_issue_brief.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/page/files/1215_cea_fine_fee_bail_issue_brief.pdf Shelf Number: 138562 Keywords: BailBail BondCourt FeesFinesPretrial Detention |
Author: Donnelly, Neil Title: Willingness to pay a fine Summary: Aim: To determine whether the fine amount, the fine detection mode and the socioeconomic status of the offender influence the willingness to pay a fine. Method: Adults from NSW were surveyed about their experience with traffic fines and willingness to pay fines. 71 per cent of respondents were obtained from a CATI sample and 29 per cent from on-line surveys. Those who had been fined were randomly allocated to scenarios about paying a future speeding fine based on fine amount ($234, $436, $2,252) and detection mode (speed camera or police). Results: 2,222 (70%) of the 3,154 respondents had been fined for a parking or traffic offence. 21 per cent of this group had not paid their fine on time, while 41 per cent had considered not paying it. Higher fine amounts were associated with lower willingness to pay. While over 80 per cent of the $254 fine scenario was likely or almost certain to pay a future speeding fine, this was only the case for 69 per cent of the $436 scenario and 31 per cent of the $2,252 scenario. There was no significant effect of the mode of detection being speed camera or police. Respondents who were not in paid employment were less willing to pay the $2,252 fine than respondents who were in paid employment (63% certainly would not or would be unlikely to pay vs. 53%). Respondents who had previously considered not paying their fine were more likely to be male, younger, having known a non-payer of a fine who got away with it, had more prior speeding offences and had been fined more recently. Conclusion: Consideration should be given to conducting an economic analysis to determine at what point, the marginal costs associated with higher fines exceed the marginal benefits, at least for offences where fines are commonly used. Details: Sydney: New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, 2016. 12p. Source: Internet Resource: Contemporary Issues in criminal and Justice, no. 195: Accessed September 21, 2016 at: http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Documents/CJB/Report-2016-Willingness-to-pay-a-fine-CJB195.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Australia URL: http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Documents/CJB/Report-2016-Willingness-to-pay-a-fine-CJB195.pdf Shelf Number: 145628 Keywords: EmploymentFines |
Author: Papalia, Paul Title: Locking in Poverty How Western Australia drives the poor, women and Aboriginal people to prison Summary: The current policy for managing Western Australians who cannot pay fines has cost taxpayers millions of dollars, strained the prison system and has disproportionately affected the poor, especially women and Aboriginal people. In Western Australia, fine defaulters may enter prison to clear a fine, if they have been unsuccessful in paying off the fine via a payment plan or completing a Community Service Order. The management of Community Service Orders was changed in early 2009, resulting in high rates of imprisonment of fine defaulters. The State Government assumes that the prospect of going to prison will deter people from breaking the law and incurring fines in the first place. If so, the number of fine defaulters entering the prison system should have diminished. Instead, this policy is driving an extra 1100 people to prison a year, with significant economic and social costs. This policy is not working. It is economically unsound, ineffective in enforcing fines payments and profoundly unfair. - Every year since 2010, more than 1,100 fine defaulters have entered prison in Western Australia solely for the purpose of clearing fines. - Fine defaulters in prison 'cut out' $250 of fines a day, yet it costs $345 per day to keep them in prison. - The costs of imprisoning fine defaulters have blown out by 220 per cent since 2008. - Last year, one in every three women who entered the prison system did so solely for the purposes of clearing fines. - The number of Aboriginal women jailed for fine default has soared by 576 per cent since 2008. - Between 2008 and 2013, the number of Aboriginal people incarcerated solely for fine default has increased from 101 to 590, a growth of more than 480 per cent. - Between 2008-9 and 2012-13, the Department of Corrective Services budget has blown out by an average of 8.6 per cent a year. If this trend continues, this year's budget of $870.25 million could blow out to $945.1 million. Details: Secret Harbor, WA: WA Labor, 2014. 11p. Source: Internet Resource: WA Labor Discussion Paper: Accessed November 14, 2017 at: https://www.markmcgowan.com.au/files/Locking_in_Poverty.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Australia URL: https://www.markmcgowan.com.au/files/Locking_in_Poverty.pdf Shelf Number: 148163 Keywords: Aboriginal PersonsCriminal DebtCriminal FinesFine DefaultersFinesIndigenous PeoplesPoverty |
Author: Resnik, Judith Title: Who Pays? Fines, Fees, Bail, and the Cost of Courts Summary: In the last decades, growing numbers of people have sought to use courts, government budgets have declined, new technologies have emerged, arrest and detention rates have risen, and arguments have been leveled that private resolutions are preferable to public adjudication. Lawsuits challenge the legality of fee structures, money bail, and the imposition of fines. States have chartered task forces to propose changes, and new research has identified the effects of the current system on low-income communities and on people of color. The costs imposed through fees, surcharges, fines, and bail affect the ability of plaintiffs and defendants to seek justice and to be treated justly. This volume, prepared for the 21st Annual Arthur Liman Center Colloquium, explores the mechanisms for financing court systems and the economic challenges faced by judiciaries and by litigants. We address how constitutional democracies can meet their obligations to make justice accessible to disputants and to make fair treatment visible to the public. Our goals are to understand the dimensions of the problems, the inter-relationships among civil, criminal, and administrative processes, and the opportunities for generating the political will to bring about reform. Details: New Haven, CT: Yale University, Law School, 2018. 222p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 8, 2018 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165674 Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3165674 Shelf Number: 150105 Keywords: BailCourt FeesCriminal Justice DebtDue ProcessFeesFinancial SanctionsFines |
Author: Link, Nathan Wong Title: Paid Your Debt to Society? Legal Financial Obligations and their Effects on Former Prisoners Summary: Within the last decade, scholars and practitioners alike have noted a surge in the use of legal financial obligations (LFOs) in criminal justice processing. These include fines, fees, and costs that are applied to defendants' cases from "upstream" agencies such as police departments to "downstream" agencies including jails, prisons, probation and parole agencies, and treatment centers. Legal financial obligations can be large, and the result is that outstanding balances often accumulate into unwieldy amounts of criminal justice debt. Recently, a small handful of qualitative studies have shown that these LFOs and debts can have adverse impacts on returning prisoners and their families, including increased stress, strained family relationships, worsened depression, and longer periods spent under criminal justice surveillance for those too poor to pay off outstanding balances. In addition, some of this work suggests that these financial obligations can increase the likelihood of returning to crime. This dissertation expands on the major contributions of these recent qualitative works by addressing the lack of quantitative research in this area. Toward this end, longitudinal data from the Returning Home Study (n = 740) and structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques are used to test whether LFOs and debt indeed have adverse impacts on key outcomes of interest in reentry research, including family relationships, depression, justice involvement/entanglement, and recidivism. Findings reveal partial support for past research and theory. Legal financial obligations do not appear to have impacts on depression, family conflict, and several measures of recidivism on average. However, outstanding debt owed to community supervision agencies (i.e., probation/parole/mandatory community supervision) significantly increases the likelihood of remaining under supervision, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of returning to prison. Implications for decision-making bodies from state legislatures to corrections agencies are discussed. Details: Philadelphia: Temple University, 2017. 192p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: accessed June 6, 2018 at: https://search.proquest.com/docview/1952046335?pq-origsite=gscholar Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://search.proquest.com/docview/1952046335?pq-origsite=gscholar Shelf Number: 150499 Keywords: Court Fines and FeesCriminal Justice DebtFeesFinancial SanctionsFinesPrisoner Reentry |
Author: Resnik, Judith Title: Ability to Pay. Summary: Ability to Pay is the second Liman Center publication focused on the burdens that individuals with limited income and wealth face in courts. An impressive body of emerging literature maps the needs of low-income individuals in courts as civil litigants and as criminal defendants and identifies the harms of court-imposed debt. As these materials reflect, legal and political will has begun to put reforms into place that limit the ways in which courts impose financial obligations. Part I, Challenging, Restructuring, and Abolishing Fee Structures, provides examples of the many lawsuits, as of the spring of 2019, that have challenged fees, fines, forfeiture, bail charges, and driver's license suspensions. The litigation interacts with legislative revisions, also excerpted, and, in some jurisdictions, abolition of certain court fees and money bail. Part II, Data Collection and Creation, offers an innovative overview of the kinds of data that state and federal court systems collect to understand how courts gain or lack information about the needs of participants in the legal system. This segment explores the current metrics used and the ways to "measure" what counts as justice. Given the growth of online technologies and the outsourcing of court filing systems to private providers, new questions have emerged about the need to have accessible and sufficient data, the concerns about individual privacy, and the problem of accountability. Part III, Innovations and Interventions: A Sampling of New Research Projects, provides a window into the breadth of activities across the country, as law schools have become research hubs taking on a host of issues related to court users. Again, we are not comprehensive but illustrative when we explore the ways in which research agendas are formulated, their impacts measured, and their effectiveness appraised. Part IV, Law Schools, Funders, and Institutionalizing Reform, reflects on the many times in which law schools have reinvented what counts as the "standard" curriculum. In the 1960s, foundation support brought clinical education to many law schools, and, since then, clinical education has become a fixture. In the 1980s, funding went to law and economics, which has likewise become a familiar marker in legal education. Ability to Pay makes plain that another reordering is underway. Law schools are committing to teaching and generating new data on courts and their users and to engaging students through coursework and research in how courts operate and impact communities. In short, just as clinical education and law and economics are now ensconced in the curriculum, the economics of court services is likewise becoming a routine part of legal education. Details: New Haven, CT: Yale University, Law School, 2019. 250p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 6, 2019 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3387647 Year: 2019 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3387647 Shelf Number: 156246 Keywords: Bail Court Fees Criminal Justice Debt Due Process Fees Financial Sanctions Fines |