Executive Summary

The past decade has seen a troubling and well-documented increase in fees and fines imposed on defendants by criminal courts. Today, many states and localities 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 works against the goal of rehabilitation and creates a major barrier to people reentering society after a conviction. They are often unable to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in accumulated court debt. When debt leads to incarceration or license suspension, it becomes even harder to find a job or housing or to pay child support. There’s also little evidence that imposing onerous fees and fines improves public safety.

Now, this first-of-its-kind analysis shows that in addition to thwarting rehabilitation and failing to improve public safety, criminal-court fees and fines also fail at efficiently raising revenue. The high costs of collection and enforcement are excluded from most assessments, meaning that actual revenues from fees and fines are far lower than what legislators expect. And because fees and fines are typically imposed without regard to a defendant’s ability to pay, jurisdictions have billions of dollars in unpaid court debt on the books that they are unlikely to ever collect. This debt hangs over the heads of defendants and grows every year.

This study examines 10 counties across Texas, Florida, and New Mexico, as well as statewide data for those three states. The counties vary in their geographic, economic, political, and ethnic profiles, as well as in their practices for collecting and enforcing fees and fines.

Key Findings

Fees and fines are an inefficient source of government revenue. The Texas and New Mexico counties studied here effectively spend more than 41 cents of every dollar of revenue they raise from fees and fines on in-court hearings and jail costs alone. That’s 121 times what the Internal Revenue Service spends to collect taxes and many times what the states themselves spend to collect taxes. One New Mexico county spends at least $1.17 to collect every dollar of revenue it raises through fees and fines, meaning that it loses money through this system.

Resources devoted to collecting and enforcing fees and fines could be better spent on efforts that actually improve public safety. Collection and enforcement efforts divert police, sheriff’s deputies, and courts from their core responsibilities.

Judges rarely hold hearings to establish defendants’ ability to pay. As a result, the burden of fees and fines falls largely on the poor, much like a regressive tax, and billions of dollars go unpaid each year. These mounting balances underscore our finding that fees and fines are an unreliable source of government revenue.

Jailing those unable to pay fees and fines is especially costly — sometimes as much as 115 percent of the amount collected — and generates no revenue.

The true costs are likely even higher than the estimates presented here, because many of the costs of imposing, collecting, and enforcing criminal fees and fines could not be ascertained. No one fully tracks these costs, a task complicated by the fact that they are spread across agencies and levels of government. Among the costs that often go unmeasured are those of jailing, time spent by police and sheriffs on warrant enforcement or driver’s license suspensions, and probation and parole resources devoted to fee and fine enforcement. This makes it all but impossible for policymakers and the public to evaluate these systems as sources of revenue.

Recommendations

States and localities should pass legislation to eliminate court-imposed fees. Courts should be funded primarily by taxpayers, all of whom are served by the justice system.

States should institute a sliding scale for assessing fines based on individuals’ ability to pay. The purpose of fines is to punish those who violate the law and deter those who might otherwise do so. A $200 fine that is a minor inconvenience to one person may be an insurmountable debt to another.

Courts should stop the practice of jailing for failure to pay, which harms rehabilitation efforts and makes little fiscal sense.

States should eliminate driver’s license suspension for nonpayment of criminal fees and fines. The practice makes it harder for poor people to pay their debts and harms individuals and their families. Lawmakers should follow the approach taken by Texas, where recent legislation will reinstate hundreds of thousands of licenses.

Courts and agencies should improve data automation practices so that affected individuals understand their outstanding court debts and policymakers can more thoroughly evaluate the efficacy of fees and fines as a source of revenue.

States should pass laws purging old balances that are unlikely to be paid but continue to complicate the lives of millions, as some jurisdictions, including San Francisco, have done. This would also ensure that individuals who have been free and clear of the criminal justice system for many years are not pulled back in simply on the basis of inability to pay.

What’s the Difference Between Fees and Fines?

Fines, imposed upon conviction, are intended as both deterrence and punishment. In Texas, for example, a fine of up to $500 may be imposed for a low-level offense, such as a traffic violation; a fine of up to $2,000 may be imposed for more serious misdemeanors, such as harassment or minor drug possession; and a fine of up to $4,000 may be imposed for the most serious misdemeanors, such as unlawful carrying of a weapon and assault with injury.

Fees, by contrast, are intended to raise revenue. Often they are automatically imposed and bear no relation to the offense committed. In most cases, fees are intended to shift the costs of the criminal justice system from taxpayers to defendants, who are seen as the “users” of the courts. They cover almost every part of the criminal justice process and can include court-appointed attorney fees, court clerk fees, filing clerk fees, DNA database fees, jury fees, crime lab analysis fees, late fees, installment fees, and various other surcharges.

The Growing Use of Fees and Fines — and the Damage They’ve Done

Since 2008, almost every state has increased criminal and civil court fees or added new ones, and the categories of offenses that trigger fines have been expanded. Our justice system increasingly relies on fees and fines charged to defendants in criminal cases to fund basic operations.

For example, North Carolina collects 52 separate fees, disbursing them to four state agencies and 611 counties and municipalities. It uses fees to fund half of the state’s judicial budget as well as jails, law enforcement, counties, and schools. Using fee and fine revenues to fund the judiciary can create perverse incentives with the potential to distort the fair administration of justice. When criminal courts become responsible for their own financing, they may prioritize the imposition of significant fee and fine amounts and dedicate substantial staff to collecting these sums.

In Florida, a significant portion of the funds raised through fees and fines is allocated to the state’s general coffers. Colorado has used increased court fees to replace and update public buildings, including a judicial complex and a museum. Florida and Kentucky increased court fees as a way to address state fiscal crises. In Oklahoma, where a 1992 referendum made it nearly impossible for legislators to raise taxes, lawmakers have increasingly come to rely on fees and fines to fund the state budget. Some fee and fine revenue has even been used for personal perks: fees and surcharges allocated to a judicial expense fund in Louisiana were found to have been spent on luxury goods, including supplemental health insurance for judges, two Ford Expeditions, a leather upholstery upgrade for a take-home vehicle, and a full-time private chef.

This increase in fees and fines has exacted a steep human cost. Individual amounts may be small, but they can quickly add up, meaning indigent people may face hundreds or thousands of dollars in accumulated debt that they’e unable to pay. While “debtors’ prisons” have been declared unconstitutional, many states still incarcerate people for failure to pay criminal justice debt. And even when failure to pay is not an explicit charge, jail sentences are handed down for failure to appear or failure to comply — infractions that often stem from failure to pay. In Socorro County, New Mexico, for example, one magistrate judge has adopted a “three strikes” policy. For each missed payment of outstanding court costs, the court’s enforcement response progresses from a bench warrant, to a bench warrant with a bond, to a charge of failure to comply that carries a three-day jail sentence. Each day spent in jail may then be credited against the defendant’s outstanding debts. Under the guise of different charges, such a policy perpetuates the function of a debtors’ prison.

In this way, criminal justice debt represents a significant barrier to a person’s chances of successfully reentering society following a conviction. It also hurts the families of those who are incarcerated, depriving them of a wage earner while adding new court costs to the defendant’s criminal debts. One study found that about half of families with convicted members cannot afford to pay fees and fines. Moreover, nearly two in three families who had a family member incarcerated were unable to meet their households’ basic needs, such as food and housing. States such as Florida that suspend driver’s licenses for unpaid fees and fines only exacerbate this economic distress, as those who lose their license may then lose their job as well as their ability to take family members to school or medical appointments and to drive themselves to court.

There is also evidence that fees and fines are assessed in a racially discriminatory way. A 2017 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that municipalities that rely heavily on revenue from fees and fines have a higher than average share of African American and Latino residents.

By now, these harms have been well documented. But there has been much less research conducted on the fiscal costs of fees and fines. This report aims to start filling that gap. Without an understanding of how much governments are spending to administer fees and fines, and how much in fees and fines is never collected, decision-makers can’t accurately gauge the efficacy of these programs.

Report Terms

Assessment. As used in this report, assessment refers to the amount of the fee or fine imposed by a judge on a criminal defendant at sentencing. For many minor offenses, assessments are made at the conclusion of a simple hearing before a judge or magistrate in which the defendant makes a plea, the evidence is reviewed, and a decision is made by the judge or magistrate. More complex and serious criminal cases may involve separate appearances in court, including an arraignment in which the charges are read and a defendant’s plea is accepted by the judge, a trial before the judge (and possibly a jury), and a sentencing hearing, at which point fees and fines may be imposed by the judge.

Criminal justice debt. Criminal justice debt is composed of legally binding financial obligations imposed on those convicted by criminal courts. While such debt may comprise fees, fines, and victim restitution — payments ordered to victims as compensation — this report deals only with fees and fines (see below), which are recognized as revenue on the balance sheets of courts and other public agencies. In contrast to private and many civil debts, criminal justice debt is enforced by the criminal justice system and can result in the issuance of arrest warrants for nonpayment, criminal court hearings, additional fines and court surcharges, detention in jail, inclusion on criminal records, and — in some states — loss of voting privileges.

Fines. Criminal fines are penalties imposed on defendants after conviction, intended as both deterrence and punishment. The amount of a fine is set by statute and based on the severity of the crime. For misdemeanors, fines may be relatively small. For felonies, fines are typically larger. Fines vary by jurisdiction and may be enhanced for repeat offenses. For example, each of the three states included in this study imposes fines as a penalty for drunk driving. For a first offense, New Mexico assesses a $300 fine, Florida assesses a $500 fine, and Texas may assess up to $2,000. In all three states, drunk driving is an enhanceable offense, meaning that the penalties, including fines, escalate depending on the number of prior offenses.

Fees. Criminal fees, unlike fines, are intended to raise revenue. Often they are automatically imposed and bear no relation to the offense committed. In most cases, fees are intended to shift the costs of the criminal justice system from taxpayers to defendants, who are seen as the “users” of the courts. Cash-strapped state and local governments rely on criminal fees to raise revenue for other purposes as well, thereby avoiding the politically unpopular step of raising taxes. Most jurisdictions impose certain fees on every defendant convicted, regardless of the nature of the offense. For example, one convicted of a misdemeanor in Florida is charged a $20 court cost fee, a $3 Court Cost Clearing Trust Fund fee, a $60 Fine and Forfeiture Fund fee, a $20 Crime Stoppers Program fee, a $50 prosecution fee, a $50 crime compensation fee, and a $20 Crime Prevention Fund fee, and potentially others. Other fees are offense-specific and imposed only on defendants convicted of certain offenses. For example, in New Mexico there are fees for defendants convicted of driving under the influence (DUI) or drug offenses. While fees may be imposed by courts, parole and probation departments, and jails and prisons, this report focuses on fees imposed by criminal courts following conviction. In some jurisdictions, fees may be referred to by another name. For example, some of the fees imposed by courts in Texas are called “court costs.”

Revenue. Fees and fines both serve as sources of revenue for state and local governments. The permissible uses for this revenue are typically set by statute. Many fees are earmarked for specific purposes, such as programs that divert defendants from prison, courthouse maintenance, or traffic safety education. Much of the revenue from criminal justice fees and fines is used to fund the judiciary or routed to law enforcement. In some cases it goes to a state or locality’s general fund, where it may be used for purposes wholly unrelated to law enforcement or the courts. Fine revenue is disbursed according to statute in each of the three states studied. In each state, most fine revenue goes into a general fund at the state or municipal level, though some is directed toward particular programs, such as road maintenance or schools.

While state statutes prescribe the distribution of funds collected through the criminal justice system, the allocation of revenue varies. For example, in New Orleans, the $11.5 million in criminal justice fees and fines collected in 2015 was distributed among eight agencies, providing funding for the municipal court, district court, public defenders, and traffic court. In Allegan County, Michigan, half of court-imposed fees went toward running the county courthouse, paying employee salaries, heating the court building, purchasing copy machines, and underwriting the cost of the county employee gym.

Waivers. In some courts, judges have authority to reduce the amount of certain fees and fines imposed at conviction. Amounts reduced without a quid pro quo (such as the performance of community service in lieu of payment or time spent in jail) often are referred to as waivers. This is the meaning of the term as employed in this report. The issuance of waivers varies considerably among jurisdictions and states.

Jail credits. Some states waive fees and fines in exchange for jail time, which are referred to as jail credits and are distinct from the kinds of credits through which people earn reductions to sentences. Though this alternative might be pitched as a benefit to those who want to discharge their debt in this manner, no one who has a choice and can make other payment arrangements would choose jail. Further, many defendants have no say in the matter. For example, one magistrate judge in Socorro County, New Mexico, jails individuals for missing three payments without making a court appearance, regardless of ability to pay. Perversely, people can accumulate additional fees during their stay in jail, leaving them with more debt than when they entered.

In some states, including Alabama, Michigan, and Texas, when people are picked up on a warrant for a failure to pay traffic tickets or fines, they may be jailed involuntarily to pay off delinquent criminal justice debt through credits issued for each day spent in jail. These credits do not generate actual revenue but simply exchange jail time for debt reduction at a great cost to the government. Jailing also comes at great cost to the people affected and their families. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that imprisonment for unpaid fines or fees without a hearing to determine ability to pay is unconstitutional. If courts find that a defendant is unable to pay, they are required to consider alternatives, such as deferrals, payment plans, community service, and waivers. Unfortunately, in practice, many courts fail to make these financial determinations.

Community service credits. Most states offer some type of community service option as an alternative to payment, though these practices vary significantly within and across states. Some states offer programs assigning people to pick up trash or maintain parks in lieu of a jail sentence or fine, while other states allow people to meet educational requirements to pay off their debt. Some types of community service require classes for certification (e.g., controlling traffic for the Department of Transportation), which can lead to employment opportunities after the debt is paid.

In some states, community service is seldom available to defendants because judges feel pressure to raise revenue for their city or county. For those who get the opportunity, community service hours are often paid at the federal minimum wage, only $7.25 an hour, making it unrealistic for people to devote the time necessary to work down their debt. This is even harder if they have jobs or are caring for family members.