THE LONG-TERM COSTS OF FINING JUVENILE OFFENDERS
Over the past several years, there has been a great deal of research detailing how fines and fees in the adult criminal-justice system drive already impoverished people into debt, increase rates of recidivism, and lead to the incarceration of people simply because they can’t pay their court bills. In March, 2016, lawyers within the civil-rights division of the Department of Justice wrote a scathing letter to their colleagues detailing how monetary punishments caused thousands of people to “face repeated, unnecessary incarceration for nonpayment despite posing no danger to the community.” This past spring, the Vera Institute of Justice launched a new initiative that will examine how fines and fees lead to an “overreliance on local incarceration that exacts significant unnecessary costs on individuals.”
