From the Fines and Fees Justice Center:
Key Findings
1. In 24 states, local and state courts imposed nearly $14 billion in fines and fees on justice-involved people over five years.
2. On average, justice fees accounted for more than 50 percent of these court-imposed monetary sanctions, demonstrating that revenue generation through court-imposed taxation is a primary objective of many court systems.
3. Court fines and fee impositions trended up even in the face of declining caseloads. From FY2018 to FY2022, the median number of incoming cases dropped by 20 percent, yet the amount of fines and fees imposed increased by 3 percent.
4. Court fines and fees are a risky and unstable revenue source for governments. Over the five year period, median collections of court-imposed fines and fees declined by 33 percent and did not recover after the COVID-19 crisis subsided.
5. Between FY2018 and FY2022, just 13 states issued over 2.5 million bench warrants, subjecting each of those individuals to arrest and incarceration for failing to pay court debt or appear in court. Most governments continue to rely
heavily on harsh penalties for nonpayment of fines and fees in an attempt to squeeze as many dollars as possible from already-vulnerable communities.
6.Governments and courts do a poor job gathering and reporting data on fine and fee imposition and collection across the country. Transparent data are spotty or unavailable in more than half of the states. This limits policymakers’ ability to understand, let alone rectify, the damaging impacts of their dependence on fines and fees to fill government coffers.
Read the full report here.
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