Ms. Stuhldreher summed up: “These fees are not meant to be punitive, but in reality they are. They add an additional layer of punishment to people who have already gone to jail, paid fines and may even be paying victim restitution.”

In addition, the emotional toll of debt is disproportional: Whether you owe $300 or $3,000, you experience stress if you don’t have it. The mental load of having debt is significant and can create all kinds of ripple effects in a person’s life.

The post-incarceration period is famously fragile. People often don’t have stable housing, social networks or jobs. People with unpaid fees are unable to clear their records, which can make it hard to even get a job. Research shows that fees can push people back toward underground economies and even to the criminal activity that got them in trouble in the first place.

And — harder to quantify — the promise of being able to do things right for the people you love is stripped away. Angelique Evans’s biggest fantasy after getting out of the women’s prison in Chowchilla after a decade was that she would buy her son’s back-to-school clothes. When she got a call that she had a mountain of fees to pay back (a total surprise to her), she knew it wouldn’t be possible. “I don’t blame anybody for my actions,” she said. “I served my time. But I want to move forward. I want to do right by my son. But how can I move forward with these fees hanging over me? It made me feel so low.”

Ms. Evans has poured herself into the New Way of Life Re-entry Program, most recently as a policy fellow. She has been, as she put it, “caught by the policy bug,” even traveling from Los Angeles to Florida to pound the pavement in the midterm elections for Amendment 4, which restored the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions. (It is now under threat.) Eleven months out of prison, she told me: “My heart is with SB144. I’ve been through the struggle. I hate to see the women coming home, simply trying to survive, trying to do the right thing and getting pulled under by these fees.”

Ms. Evans isn’t alone. There is a wide range of organizations behind the new statewide legislation. Ms. Stuhldreher reports that her office is getting at least a call a week from other places that want to do what San Francisco County has done. Cities Addressing Fines and Fees Equitably, introduced by the National League of Cities and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, is funding technical assistance to six city governments seeking to reduce or eliminate their reliance on fines.

Theresa Zhen, a staff attorney at the East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley, who is helping coordinate the advocacy effort for SB144, is already declaring victory. “The fact that even the opposition to the bill admits that it’s philosophically right is huge,” she said. “We’re finally having the real conversation: that courts have been built on the backs of the poor.”