- Devah Pager, Rebecca Goldstein, Helen Ho, and Bruce Western
- November 2022
- Focus-on-Poverty-382e
- Link to Focus-on-Poverty-38-2e (PDF)
- Link to Focus-on-Poverty-Classroom-Supplement-38-2 (PDF)
Rebecca Goldstein, Helen Ho, and Bruce Western continue the collaborative work started with their late colleague Devah Pager by looking at how court fees criminalize low-income defendants when they are unable to pay. The study profiled here is particularly strong in its assertions about causal relationships due to the nature of its experimental design, a randomized controlled trial.
Takeaways
- Fines and fees associated with legal-system involvement are common and often applied to defendants who have no reasonable ability to pay, extending legal-system involvement by criminalizing poverty.
- In a randomized controlled trial of court-related fee relief for misdemeanor charges in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, fee relief is not associated with new criminal charges, convictions, or jail bookings within 12 months.
- Levying court-related debts on low-income defendants appeared to neither cause nor reduce new crime, with little financial benefit obtained by local government seeking collections.
Categories
Court System, Fines & Fees, Justice System, Place, Place General