On Dec. 2, 2015, the Justice Department addressed the effect and fairness of fees and fines with a group of judges, academics and practitioners. Together, the group would create an agenda to that will help reform court practices in their jurisdictions. The White House held an event called, “A Cycle of Incarceration: Prison, Debt and Bail Practices,” to explore further the connection between poverty and the criminal justice system and highlight state reform efforts. Also, the White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a briefing that explored judicial-related fines, fees and bail and how costs unfairly impacts the poor. As stated in a blog on the Pretrail Justice Institute website, the opening remarks of Attorney General Loretta Lynch kindly set the tone of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) thoughts on bail. “What is the price of justice? When bail is set unreasonably high, people are behind bars only because they are poor. Not because they’re a danger or a flight risk—only because they are poor. They don’t have money to get out of jail and they certainly don’t have money to flee anywhere. Other people who do have the means can avoid the system, setting inequality in place from the beginning.” There’s been ongoing efforts by the DOJ to improve pretrial practices. The DOJ helped fund the Smart Pretrial Demonstration Initiative, a multi-site project managed by PJJ. With initiative such as this, the domino effect has the potential to improve how the system impacts the economy. This was the main concern of the Council of Economic Advisers. Below are three areas of concern that was brought up during the event: Increasing Use of Fines, Fees and Bail: As higher levels of incarceration and law enforcement have placed budgetary pressure on states and local governments, they have increasingly turned to criminal justice payments as a source of additional revenue. Available data suggests that about two-thirds of all prison inmates have criminal justice debts, and rising use of bail payments has contributed to a 60 percent increase in the number of un-convicted inmates in jails between 1996 and 2014. Disproportionate Impact on the Poor: Because fines and fees do not take into account the defendants’ ability to pay, they place a disproportionate burden on lower-income defendants and create a highly regressive system of raising revenue and paying for criminal justice operations. Low-income individuals with criminal justice debts may face difficult tradeoffs between paying their debt and purchasing other necessities, and those unable to pay can face incarceration, demonstrating the large human cost of these policies as well. Bail payments set without consideration of financial circumstances can also result in detaining the poorest defendants rather than the most dangerous. For example, in New York City in 2010, nearly 80 percent of arrestees failed to make bail at arraignment for bail amounts less than $500. Economic Inefficiency: Assigning fines and fees to low-income offenders represents a highly inefficient way to raise revenue, as these individuals likely do not have the means to pay. Some states are able to collect less than 20 percent of some types of fees, and the low rate of collection sometimes means that the cost of operating the program exceeds the revenue collected. Incarcerating individuals for failure to pay only furthers this problem, with the cost of incarceration alone sometimes exceeding the debt owed. The White House and DOJ’s acknowledgment of cost inefficiencies is a step in the right direction towards creating a national reform. For more information, visit www.justice.gov.
