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ABSTRACT
Academics, policymakers, and practitioners alike are increasingly interested in criminal legal debt stemming from financial sanctions and its consequences on individuals and families. Most prior work has focused on justice system exposure and the accumulation of fines, fees, and costs. This study assesses whether owing criminal court debt is a factor in keeping people tied to the justice system in the short-term yet critical window after release from prison. In addition, I examine whether being under supervision (i.e., probation or parole) increases the chance of owing court-related debt. Relying on longitudinal survey data from the Returning Home Study, results suggest the existence of a feedback loop whereby one’s status as being under correctional supervision at release from prison leads to increased debt, which in turn increases the chance of remaining under supervision during the first year out. The findings have implications for law and policy and raise important questions about the role of revenue generation in criminal justice.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank Caterina G. Roman, Jeffrey T. Ward, Christy Visher, and Wayne Welsh for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. The data used in this study stemmed from a larger project conducted by the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, and the author is grateful to Christy Visher for access to the data.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Because very few studies on fees in supervision have been conducted, researchers must rely on scattered data from case studies and journalistic accounts. In light of these facts, and because financial sanctions vary in purpose and size across jurisdictions, the numbers reported in the literature vary widely (Martin et al., Citation2018).
2. Importantly, although supervision after release from prison can result in lower recidivism (Ostermann & Hyatt, Citation2016), extensions of probation/parole could also link with higher recidivism, as supervision, especially when intensive, has shown to result in increased chances of violation detection (Grattet & Lin, Citation2016; Grattet et al., Citation2009; Hyatt & Barnes, Citation2017).
3. To assess the possibility of multicollinearity among any of the covariates, an OLS regression model was estimated to assess variance inflation factors and tolerance levels. All VIFs were less than 3.2 (mean = 1.54), and the lowest tolerance level was 0.32, indicating no collinear patterns according to the conservative standard of <4 (Fox, Citation1991).
4. Pairwise present analysis estimates the model using as much data from each respondent as possible. One way of conceptualizing this approach is that if all the covariates were displayed in a correlation table, this analysis uses the data every time a pair of any covariates is present, whereas listwise deletion drops the entire case if a respondent is missing on any variable.
5. Bootstrap mediation tests are significant if the confidence interval does not cross zero (Muthen & Muthen, Citation2017).
6. For Texas, Criminal Procedure Article 42.12 indicates that courts may require payment of fines, fees, and costs as a condition of supervision. See: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CR/htm/CR.42A.htm.
7. For relevant state law, see 730 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/5-6-3(b) (http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/fulltext.asp?DocName=073000050K5-6-3), specifically “The Court may in addition to other reasonable conditions relating to the nature of the offense or the rehabilitation of the defendant as determined for each defendant in the proper discretion of the Court require that the person: pay fines and costs … ”
8. See Bannon et al. (Citation2010) for payment of fines and fees as a standard condition of supervision. Also see state law (http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/2967) showing that payment of drug testing fees may be imposed as a condition of supervision.
9. It is this same principle which served as the basis for the few relevant Supreme Court cases, including Bearden v. Georgia (1983), that found revoking a person’s probation for debt nonpayment – when they cannot afford it – is fundamentally unfair.
10. See: https://finesandfeesjusticecenter.org/articles/alameda-county-administrative-code-section-2-42-190-amendment-prohibiting-assessment-and-collection-of-fees-for-adult-probation-services-fees-collected-by-public-defenders-office-fees-fo/and https://jlc.org/news/new-jersey-just-eliminated-fines-youth-juvenile-system-and-thats-good-thing