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research report research The Steep Costs of Criminal Justice Fees and Fines A Fiscal Analysis of Three States and Ten Counties By Matthew Menendez, Michael F. Crowley, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, and Noah Atchison Produced with research assistance from the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Right on Crime PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 21, 2019 Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law Table of Contents Executive Summary .................................................5 ABOUT THE BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE I. Key Findings ........................................................9 The Brennan Center for Justice at II. Recommendations ................................................. 11 NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that III. County Fiscal Impacts ............................................14 seeks to improve our systems of democracy and justice. We work IV. Key Variations Among Jurisdictions ............................... 21 to hold our political institutions and laws accountable to the twin V. Statewide Analysis ................................................23 American ideals of democracy and equal justice for all. The Center’s VI. Conclusion .......................................................33 work ranges from voting rights to campaign finance reform, from Appendix A: Fiscal Impact Analysis of Individual Jurisdictions ........ 34 ending mass incarceration to preserving constitutional protection Appendix B: Methodology ........................................... 54 in the fight against terrorism. Part think tank, part advocacy group, Endnotes .......................................................... 59 part cutting-edge communications hub, we start with rigorous research. We craft innovative policies. And we fight for them — in Congress and the states, in the courts, and in the court of public opinion. ABOUT THE BRENNAN CENTER’S JUSTICE PROGRAM The Brennan Center’s Justice Program seeks to secure our nation’s promise of equal justice for all by creating a rational, effective, and fair justice system. Its priority focus is to reduce mass incarceration while keeping down crime. The program melds law, policy, and economics to produce new empirical analyses and innovative policy solutions to advance this critical goal. © 2019. This paper is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs license. It may be reproduced in its entirety as long as the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is credited, a link to the Center’s web pages is provided, and no charge is imposed. The paper may not be reproduced in part or in altered form, or if a fee is charged, without the Center’s permission. Please let the Center know if you reprint. The Steep Costs of Criminal Justice Fees and Fines Brennan Center for Justice 3 Executive Summary he past decade has seen a troubling and well-documented increase in fees and fines imposed on defendants by criminal courts. Today, many states and Tlocalities rely on these fees and fines to fund their court systems or even basic government operations. A wealth of evidence has already shown that this system Judges rarely hold hearings to establish defendants’ works against the goal of rehabilitation and creates a ability to pay. As a result, the burden of fees and major barrier to people reentering society after a convic- fines falls largely on the poor, much like a regres- tion.1 They are often unable to pay hundreds or thousands sive tax, and billions of dollars go unpaid each year. of dollars in accumulated court debt. When debt leads These mounting balances underscore our finding to incarceration or license suspension, it becomes even that fees and fines are an unreliable source of gov- harder to find a job or housing or to pay child support. ernment revenue. There’s also little evidence that imposing onerous fees and fines improves public safety. Jailing those unable to pay fees and fines is espe- Now, this first-of-its-kind analysis shows that in addi- cially costly — sometimes as much as 115 percent tion to thwarting rehabilitation and failing to improve of the amount collected — and generates no rev- public safety, criminal-court fees and fines also fail at enue. The practice is not just unconstitutional but efficiently raising revenue.2 The high costs of collection also irrational. and enforcement are excluded from most assessments, meaning that actual revenues from fees and fines are far The true costs are likely even higher than the esti- lower than what legislators expect. And because fees and mates presented here, because many of the costs fines are typically imposed without regard to a defen- of imposing, collecting, and enforcing criminal fees dant’s ability to pay, jurisdictions have billions of dollars and fines could not be ascertained. No one fully in unpaid court debt on the books that they are unlikely tracks these costs, a task complicated by the fact to ever collect. This debt hangs over the heads of defen- that they are spread across agencies and levels of dants and grows every year. government. Among the costs that often go unmea- This study examines 10 counties across Texas, Florida, sured are those of jailing, time spent by police and and New Mexico, as well as statewide data for those three sheriffs on warrant enforcement or driver’s license states. The counties vary in their geographic, economic, suspensions, and probation and parole resources political, and ethnic profiles, as well as in their practices devoted to fee and fine enforcement. This makes it for collecting and enforcing fees and fines. all but impossible for policymakers and the public to evaluate these systems as sources of revenue. Key Findings Fees and fines are an inefficient source of govern- Recommendations ment revenue. The Texas and New Mexico counties States and localities should pass legislation to elim- studied here effectively spend more than 41 cents inate court-imposed fees. Courts should be funded of every dollar of revenue they raise from fees and primarily by taxpayers, all of whom are served by the fines on in-court hearings and jail costs alone. justice system. That’s 121 times what the Internal Revenue Service spends to collect taxes and many times what the States should institute a sliding scale for assess- states themselves spend to collect taxes. One New ing fines based on individuals’ ability to pay. The Mexico county spends at least $1.17 to collect every purpose of fines is to punish those who violate the dollar of revenue it raises through fees and fines, law and deter those who might otherwise do so. A meaning that it loses money through this system. $200 fine that is a minor inconvenience to one per- son may be an insurmountable debt to another. Resources devoted to collecting and enforcing fees and fines could be better spent on efforts that actu- Courts should stop the practice of jailing for failure ally improve public safety. Collection and enforce- to pay, which harms rehabilitation efforts and ment efforts divert police, sheriff’s deputies, and makes little fiscal sense. courts from their core responsibilities. The Steep Costs of Criminal Justice Fees and Fines Brennan Center for Justice 5 States should eliminate driver’s license suspension judicial budget as well as jails, law enforcement, counties, for nonpayment of criminal fees and fines. The and schools.8 Using fee and fine revenues to fund the judi- practice makes it harder for poor people to pay their ciary can create perverse incentives with the potential debts and harms individuals and their families. Law- to distort the fair administration of justice. When crim- makers should follow the approach taken by Texas, inal courts become responsible for their own financing, where recent legislation will reinstate hundreds of they may prioritize the imposition of significant fee and thousands of licenses.3 fine amounts and dedicate substantial staff to collecting these sums. Courts and agencies should improve data automa- In Florida, a significant portion of the funds raised tion practices so that affected individuals under- through fees and fines is allocated to the state’s general stand their outstanding court debts and policymak- coffers.9 Colorado has used increased court fees to ers can more thoroughly evaluate the efficacy of fees replace and update public buildings, including a judicial and fines as a source of revenue. complex and a museum.10 Florida and Kentucky increased court fees as a way to address state fiscal crises.11 In States should pass laws purging old balances that Oklahoma, where a 1992 referendum made it nearly are unlikely to be paid but continue to complicate impossible for legislators to raise taxes, lawmakers have the lives of millions, as some jurisdictions, including increasingly come to rely on fees and fines to fund the San Francisco, have done.4 This would also ensure state budget.12 Some fee and fine revenue has even been that individuals who have been free and clear of the used for personal perks: fees and surcharges allocated criminal justice system for many years are not pulled to a judicial expense fund in Louisiana were found to back in simply on the basis of inability to pay. have been spent on luxury goods, including supplemen- tal health insurance for judges, two Ford Expeditions, a What’s the Difference Between leather upholstery upgrade for a take-home vehicle, and Fees and Fines? a full-time private chef.13 Fines, imposed upon conviction, are intended as both This increase in fees and fines has exacted a steep deterrence and punishment. In Texas, for example, a fine human cost. Individual amounts may be small, but they of up to $500 may be imposed for a low-level offense, can quickly add up, meaning indigent people may face such as a traffic violation; a fine of up to $2,000 may hundreds or thousands of dollars in accumulated debt be imposed for more serious misdemeanors, such as that they’e unable to pay. While “debtors’ prisons” have harassment or minor drug possession; and a fine of up been declared unconstitutional, many states still incar- to $4,000 may be imposed for the most serious misde- cerate people for failure to pay criminal justice debt.

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