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On this page, the Prison Policy Initiative has curated all of the research about the intersection of the justice system and wealth that we know of. You can also see a selection of our best original research on this topic on our Poverty and Debt page. For research on other criminal justice topics, see our Research Library homepage.
Fair Chance Act failures? Employers' hiring of people with criminal records Sharon S. Oselin, Justine G. M. Ross, Qingfang Wang, & Wei Kang, November, 2024“Only 25.8% of hiring decision makers indicated they would have seriously considered someone with a criminal conviction for the last entry-level/non-degreed position they hired for though there is variation based on the type of crime.”
Medical Debt Behind Bars: The Punishing Impact of Copays, Fees, and Other Carceral Medical Debt National Consumer Law Center, September, 2024“Many people who are incarcerated do not have the income to pay even the most modest medical fee without significant help from their already-burdened and often low-income families.”
How Fines and Fees Impact Family Well-BeingTax Policy Center, August, 2024“[In 2023,] those who were unable to pay court or incarceration-related fines and fees often faced severe consequences: 28% ...charged additional fines and fees, 24% [had] their driver's licenses suspended, and 19% reported serving time in jail.”
Shadow Budgets: How mass incarceration steals from the poor to give to the prison Prison Policy Initiative, May, 2024“Most [welfare fund] policies are so vague that prison officials enjoy wide discretion to spend incarcerated peoples' money as they please -- sometimes spending it on luxury perks for staff.”
Evaluating Firearm Violence After New Jersey's Cash Bail ReformJaquelyn L. Jahn, Jessica T. Simes, & Jonathan Jay, May, 2024“Although New Jersey's pretrial detention population dramatically decreased under bail reform, the study did not find evidence of increases in overall firearm mortality or gun violence, or within racialized groups during the postpolicy period.”
Restoring and Rebuilding: Indigent Defense in Gwinnett County Wren Collective, January, 2024“In 2022, the county had 132 lawyers willing to take court appointments. Now, that number is 80. Those 80 lawyers are responsible for 13,000 cases/year. There are only 8 lawyers eligible to handle murder cases, which have a potential punishment of death...”
Resetting the Record: The Facts on Hiring People with Criminal HistoriesRAND Corporation, January, 2024“More than 25% of workers in the active workforce have at least one prior conviction. The evidence is overwhelming: People with conviction records can be (and are) successful employees.”
One in Five: How Mass Incarceration Deepens Inequality and Harms Public Safety (Part 4) Sentencing Project, January, 2024“Mass incarceration's hold on vast public resources, its imposition of financial burdens, and the obstacles erected for people with criminal records further erode economic and social buffers against crime.”
Accessing SNAP and TANF Benefits after a Drug Conviction: A Survey of State Laws Collateral Consequences Resource Center, December, 2023“As of December 5, 2023, 25 states and the District of Columbia have opted out of both federal bans, so that people with drug felony convictions may receive both SNAP and TANF benefits for which they are otherwise eligible.”
Gideon at 60: A Snapshot of State Public Defense Systems and Paths to System Reform National Institute of Justice Office for Access to Justice, November, 2023“Two-thirds of states (34) do not have full statewide oversight of public defense, meaning they do not set standards or monitor whether people receive counsel in all cases where they have a right to it.”
The Failure of Gideon and the Promise of Public DefenseCenter for Justice Innovation, November, 2023“In essence, fast pleas, typically at the expense of what is best for [a flat-fee attorney's] client, act as the counter to offset low pay.”
Forgotten but not gone: A multi-state analysis of modern-day debt imprisonment Johann D. Gaebler et al, September, 2023“Between 2005 and 2018, around 38,000 residents of Texas and around 8,000 residents of Wisconsin were jailed each year for failure to pay (FTP), with the median individual spending one day in jail in both Texas and Wisconsin.”
The Criminalization of Poverty in Kentucky: How Economic Crises and Flawed Reforms Fueled an Incarceration Boom Vera Institute of Justice, August, 2023“By turning to criminal legal fines and fees to fund court and jail operations, jurisdictions across Kentucky create a vicious cycle that traps people in poverty and makes it more difficult for people to lead stable lives after incarceration.”
Taken for a Ride How Excessive Ticketing Propels Alabama Drivers Into a Cycle of Debt, Incarceration, and Poverty Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, July, 2023“The municipal court judge in Jacksonville won't issue a warrant of arrest until a person fails to appear in court three times for a given charge...In Anniston, however, a person can be arrested after missing a single court date.”
Unhoused and under arrest: How Atlanta polices poverty Prison Policy Initiative, June, 2023“Most strikingly, we find that 1 in 8 Atlanta city jail bookings in 2022 -- or 12.5% -- were of people who were experiencing homelessness.”
Debt Sentence: How Fines and Fees Hurt Working Families Wilson Center for Science and Justice and the Fines and Fees Justice Center, May, 2023“This is the first study to use a nationally representative sample in examining the personal impacts court-imposed debt has on people unable to immediately pay off their fines and fees.”
Stepping on the Gas: Accelerating Florida's Economic Growth by Restoring the Freedom to Drive Fines and Fees Justice Center, February, 2023“As of November 2022, 716,383 Floridians cannot legally drive because of unpaid fines and fees--1 in 24 driving-age adults.”
The Burden of Court Debt on WashingtoniansVera Institute of Justice, January, 2023“At least 78 percent of people with legal-financial debt meet the state's indigency standard, yet courts routinely impose fines and fees at conviction averaging $695 for misdemeanor cases and $1,302 for felony cases.”
Assessments & Surcharges: A 50-State Survey of Supplemental Fees Fines and Fees Justice Center, December, 2022“Whether they are called administrative assessments, surcharges, court costs, privilege taxes, docket fees, or something else...they are imposed in nearly every criminal, traffic, or local ordinance case.”
Prioritization of carceral spending in U.S. cities: Development of the Carceral Resource Index (CRI) and the role of race and income inequality Britt Skaathun et al, December, 2022“To our knowledge, this is the first study to consider the joint interaction of race and class on the prioritization of carceral systems over health and social support systems.”
Broken Rules: Laws Meant to End Debtors' Prisons are Failing Nebraskans ACLU of Nebraska, December, 2022“Observations from a combined 2,300+ bail and sentencing hearings show systemic disregard of laws meant to protect Nebraskans who are struggling financially.”
Electronic Monitoring Fees: A 50-State Survey of the Costs Assessed to People on E-Supervision Fines and Fees Justice Center, September, 2022“Broad language in state statutes and rules often gives local governments considerable latitude in determining how much to charge. From a limited review of 31 local jurisdictions with EM programs, fees ranged from less than $1 a day up to $40 per day”
Surviving austerity: Commissary stores, inequality and punishment in the contemporary American prison Paywall :(Tommaso Bardelli, Zach Gillespie and Thuy Linh Tu, August, 2022“Prison commissary stores constitute a crucial mechanism for extending financial extraction inside carceral institutions, siphoning millions of dollars each year from impoverished households.”(See also the authors' guest post on the same topic here.)
Collection at all Costs: Examining the Intersection of Mass Incarceration and the Student Debt Crisis Student Borrower Protection Center, July, 2022“While advocates have long decried the harms that mass incarceration and the student loan debt trap inflict...the ways each of these crises amplify and worsen the abuses of the other is rarely in the national spotlight.”
At What Cost? Findings from an Examination into the Imposition of Public Defense System Fees National Legal Aid & Defender Association, July, 2022“In the overwhelming majority of states, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel does not mean that counsel for those who cannot afford it is provided free of charge.”
Extended Injustice: Court Fines and Fees for Young People are Counterproductive, Particularly Harm Black Young People, Families, and Communi The Commonwealth Institute, July, 2022“While detailed Virginia data on the impact of juvenile court fines and fees by race is not available, analyses from other states shows that Black youth pay the highest amount in fines as a result of greater frequency and duration of probation conditions.”
Beyond the count: A deep dive into state prison populationsPrison Policy Initiative, April, 2022“Incarcerated people are a diverse cross-section of society whose disadvantages and unmet needs often begin early in life, and persist throughout their often lifelong involvement with the criminal legal system.”
COVID looks like it may stay. That means prison medical copays must go.Prison Policy Initiative, February, 2022“Medical copays encourage a dangerous waiting game for incarcerated people, correctional agencies, and the public, with little payoff in terms of offsetting medical costs and reducing "unnecessary" office visits.”
The High Cost Of A Fresh Start: A State-by-State Analysis of Court Debt As a Bar To Record Clearing National Consumer Law Center and Collateral Consequences Resource Center, February, 2022“In almost every jurisdiction we studied, outstanding court debt is a barrier to record clearing in at least some cases, either rendering a person entirely ineligible for relief or making it difficult for them to qualify.”
Justice-Involved Individuals and the Consumer Financial MarketplaceConsumer Financial Protection Bureau, January, 2022“People exiting jail or prison face frequent fees for the prepaid cards they often have no choice but to receive...even market-rate fees on a prepaid product would burden this vulnerable class of people relative to receiving cash or checks.”
Justice by Geography: The Role of Monetary Sanctions Across Communities Gabriela Kirk et al, January, 2022“Our finding that acquaintanceship density influences both the role and nature of monetary sanctions provides a fuller picture of the factors that lead to varying local legal cultures surrounding monetary sanctions.”
The Civil Rights Implications of Cash BailU.S. Commission on Civil Rights, January, 2022(This report examines pretrial incarceration trends, constitutional and legal concerns regarding pretrial and bail practices, an analysis of the role of the federal government regarding bail practices, and an in-depth investigation of four jurisdictions.)
Beyond Payment Plans: Breaking the Cycle of Court Debt in Tennessee Think Tennessee, December, 2021“For Tennesseans who face an endless cycle of penalties due to an inability to pay court debt, the county where they live could determine whether they have access to a payment plan that could help them break free.”
Broken Rules: How Pennsylvania Courts Use Cash Bail to Incarcerate People Before Trial ACLU Pennsylvania, December, 2021“The average statewide bail amount was $38,433 -- more than half the average household income in Pennsylvania.”
Criminalizing Homelessness: Circumstances Surrounding Criminal Trespassing and People Experiencing Homelessness Paywall :(Brie Diamond, Ronald Burns, Kendra Bowen, December, 2021“Criminal trespassing (CT) is an understudied misdemeanor offense often enforced to maintain control over contested spaces and, in practice, often disproportionately used against disenfranchised populations such as the homeless and mentally ill.”
Show me the money: Tracking the companies that have a lock on sending funds to incarcerated people Prison Policy Initiative, November, 2021“We looked at all fifty state departments of corrections to figure out which companies hold the contracts to provide money-transfer services and what the fees are to use these services.”
Blood from a stone: How New York prisons force people to pay for their own incarceration Tommaso Bardelli, Zach Gillespie and Thuy Linh Tu, October, 2021“A study by members of the New York University Prison Education Program Research Collective gives important first-hand accounts of the damage done when prisons shift financial costs to incarcerated people.”
Driving Injustice: Consequences and Disparities in North Carolina Criminal Legal and Traffic Debt Duke Law School Wilson Center for Science and Justice, September, 2021“Over 650,000 people, or 1 in 12 adults in North Carolina currently have unpaid criminal court debt. One consequence of unpaid debt is indefinite suspension of driving privileges.”
Debt to Society: The Role of Fines & Fees Reform in Dismantling the Carceral State Wesley Dozier and Daniel Kiel, September, 2021“Between 2005 and 2017, the Tennessee General Assembly passed forty-six bills that increased the amount of debt owed by individuals who make contact with the criminal legal system.”
Access Denied: Eliminating Barriers and Increasing Economic Opportunity for Justice-Involved Individuals Collateral Consequences Resource Center, September, 2021“The [Small Business Administration] continues to impose extensive criminal record-related restrictions in its general small business loan programs, frustrating lawful efforts by entrepreneurs and employees with criminal histories.”
The carceral production of transgender poverty: How racialized gender policing deprives transgender women of housing and safety Dilara Yarbrough, May, 2021“Laws crafted with race-neutral language target survival and coping strategies disproportionately used by people of color and trans people in public space.”
Untangling Eviction, Disadvantage, Race, and Social Processes: Neighborhood Factors Influencing Crime Paywall :(Eileen M. Kirk, April, 2021“Eviction is likely concentrated in neighborhoods vulnerable to crime, but the connection between eviction and neighborhood violent crime has not yet been examined...this Boston-based study is a first step in filling this knowledge gap.”
ALC Court Watch Docket Report #02 Maintaining Apartheid: Arrest and Cash Bail in Allegheny County Abolitionist Law Center, April, 2021“In a county that is less than 13% Black, 56% of all arrests between Aug 14 and Dec 31 of 2020 were of Black residents.”
The cumulative risk of jail incarcerationBruce Western, Jaclyn Davis, Flavien Ganter, and Natalie Smith, April, 2021“The contours of jail incarceration observed in New York City follow the pattern of mass criminalization where large numbers of Black and Latino men are subject to penal control, in most cases for low-level offenses.”
Age Gradient in Women's Crime: The Role of Welfare Reform Paywall :(Hope Corman, Dhaval M. Dave, and Nancy E. Reichman, February, 2021“Using Federal Bureau of Investigation data, we investigated the age-patterning of effects of welfare reform on women's arrests for property crime, the type of crime that welfare reform has been shown to affect.”
Paid Your Debt to Society? Court-related Financial Obligations and Community Supervision during the First Year after Release from Prison Paywall :(Nathan W. Link, February, 2021“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 Business Case for Criminal Justice Reform: Second Chance HiringU.S. Chamber of Commerce, January, 2021“At the national level, economists estimate that the Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.) is reduced between $78 billion and $87 billion due to excluding formerly incarcerated job seekers from the workforce.”
Proliferation of Punishment: The Centrality of Legal Fines and Fees in the Landscape of Contemporary Penology Paywall :(Ilya Slavinski and Becky Pettit, January, 2021“Enforcement of LFOs varies geographically and is related to conservative politics and racial threat.”
Punishing Relations: How WA DOC's Collateral Damage and Hidden Costs Imprison Families Washington Corrections Watch, January, 2021“The financial and emotional burdens of incarceration are primarily borne by female family members, most especially in communities of color.”
ALC Court Watch Docket Report #01 Cash Bail, Arbitrary Detention and Apartheid in Allegheny County Abolitionist Law Center, November, 2020“Black residents of Allegheny County are more likely to be arrested, charged, and have monetary bail imposed against them.”
Wealth and Retirement: Pondering the Fate of Formerly Incarcerated Men During the Golden Years Paywall :(Ngina Chiteji, October, 2020“We find that formerly incarcerated men have little wealth accumulated by their late 40s and 50s, that they have limited access to on-the-job pensions, and that some may not even be able to rely on Social Security when they are old.”
Criminal Justice System Involvement and Food Insufficiency: Findings from the 2018 New York City Community Health Survey Paywall :(Alexander Testa and Dylan B.Jackson, September, 2020“Personal and family history of CRJ involvement is associated with a higher likelihood of experiencing moderate-to-severe food insufficiency.”
New York's Ferguson Problem: How the state's racist fee system punishes poverty, lacks transparency, and is overdue for reform No Price on Justice, September, 2020“A national study found that 34 New York localities are about as reliant, if not more reliant, on fines and fees revenue as Ferguson was during the period investigated.”
State supervision, punishment and poverty: The case of drug bans on welfare receipt Amanda Sheely, August, 2020“I find that poverty is lower among people with drug convictions in states that opted out of the drug ban, compared to full ban states.”
Police Killings in the US: Inequalities by Race/Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Position People's Policy Project, June, 2020“Whites in the poorest areas have a police killing rate of 7.9 per million, compared to 2 per million in the least-poor areas. Blacks in the poorest areas have a police killing rate of 12.3 per million, compared to 6.7 per million in the least-poor areas.”
The Limits of Fairer Fines: Lessons from Germany Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School, June, 2020“Germany also shows us that considering ability to pay at sentencing in every case is possible without being unduly cumbersome.”
The Explosion of Unpaid Criminal Fines and Fees in North CarolinaDuke Law Center for Science and Justice, April, 2020“One in twelve adults in North Carolina currently have unpaid criminal court debt. This largely uncollectable debt may total well over one hundred million dollars.”
Stalled: Alabama's Destructive Practice of Suspending Driver's LicensesAlabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, February, 2020“A 2018 survey of Alabamians whose licenses were suspended due to unpaid tickets found 89% had to choose between basic needs like food, utilities, or medicine and paying what they owed and 64% were jailed in connection with unpaid traffic debt.”
In Trouble: How the Promise of Diversion Clashes With the Reality of Poverty, Addiction, and Structural Racism in Alabama's Justice Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, February, 2020“Fifty-five percent of them made less than $14,999 per year, yet the median amount they reported paying for diversion was $1,600 -- more than ten percent of their total income.”
Housing Not Handcuffs: Ending the Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, December, 2019“Over the past thirteen years, there has been a dramatic increase in criminalization laws, yet access to affordable housing grows ever more elusive.”
Paying for Jail: How County Jails Extract Wealth from New York Communities Worth Rises and Brooklyn Community Bail Fund, December, 2019“We estimate that in 2017 the 57 counties outside of New York City extracted over $25.1 million for phone calls, $14.1 million for commissary, and $0.2 million for disciplinary tickets.”
The Steep Costs of Criminal Justice Fees and Fines: A Fiscal Analysis of Three States and Ten Counties Brennan Center for Justice, November, 2019(Criminal fines and fees burden the members of society who are least able to pay, and the costs of collection are many times greater than those of general taxation, effectively canceling out much of the revenue.)
Free to Drive: States punish poverty by suspending millions of driver's licenses for unpaid fines and fees Free to Drive, September, 2019“44 states and District of Columbia still suspend, revoke or do not allow a person to renew their driver's license if they have unpaid court debt.”
The Hidden Costs of Florida's Criminal Justice FeesRebekah Diller, Brennan Center for Justice, August, 2019“Since 1996, Florida added more than 20 new categories of financial obligations for criminal defendants and, at the same time, eliminated most exemptions for those who cannot pay”
Can't Pay, Can't Vote: A National Survey on the Modern Poll Tax Campaign Legal Center and the Civil Rights Clinic at Georgetown Law, July, 2019“But, the majority of states condition rights restoration, either explicitly or implicitly, on the payment of legal financial obligations.”
Snapping Back: Food Stamp Bans and Criminal Recidivism Cody Tuttle, May, 2019“This paper provides evidence that denying drug offenders SNAP benefits has increased their likelihood of recidivism.”
New data: Low incomes - but high fees - for people on probation Prison Policy Initiative, April, 2019“Nationwide, two-thirds (66%) of people on probation make less than $20,000 per year.”
Too Poor to Pay: How Arkansas's Offender-Funded Justice System Drives Poverty & Mass Incarceration Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, March, 2019“In Arkansas, thousands have been jailed, often repeatedly, for weeks or even months at a time, simply because they are poor and cannot afford to pay court costs, fines and fees.”
Driver's License Suspension in North CarolinaBrandon L. Garrett and William Crozier, March, 2019“We found that there are 1,225,000 active driver's licenses suspensions in North Carolina for non-driving related reasons, relating to failure to pay traffic fines and court courts, and failure to appear in court for traffic offenses.”
Towed into Debt: How Towing Practices in California Punish Poor People Western Center on Law & Poverty, March, 2019“For many Californians, a vehicle tow means the permanent loss of their car and, along with it, the loss of employment, access to education and medical care, and, for some, their only shelter.”
Commercialized (In)Justice: Consumer Abuses in the Bail And Corrections Industry National Consumer Law Center, March, 2019“The growth of the corrections industry accelerates the trend whereby the costs of our legal system are imposed on low-income, disadvantaged communities least able to shoulder such burdens, rather than shared as a collective public responsibility.”
No Credit For Time Served? Incarceration and Credit-Driven Crime Cycles Abhay Aneja and Carlos Avenancio-Leon, February, 2019“Incarceration significantly reduces access to credit, and that in turn leads to substantial increases in recidivism, creating a perverse feedback loop.”
Return to Nowhere: The Revolving Door Between Incarceration and Homelessness Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, February, 2019“People experiencing homelessness are 11 times more likely to face incarceration when compared to the general population, and formerly incarcerated individuals are almost 10 times more likely to be homeless than the general public.”
Punishing HomelessnessSara Rankin, January, 2019“Cities throughout the country are increasingly enacting and enforcing laws that punish the conduct of necessary, life-sustaining activities in public, even when many people have no other option.”
Criminal Justice Debt in the South: A Primer for the Southern Partnership to Reduce Debt National Consumer Law Center, December, 2018“The excessive criminal justice debts that burden people leaving prison create a barrier to successful reentry, contributing to cycles of incarceration.”
Philadelphia Bail Watch Report Findings and Recommendations based on 611 Bail Hearings Philadelphia Bail Fund & Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, October, 2018“Philadelphia's preliminary arraignment system disadvantages individuals charged with crimes and, as a result, threatens one of the most sacred principles in our nation's criminal justice system: a person is innocent until proven guilty”
Under Pressure: How fines and fees hurt people, undermine public safety, and drive Alabama's racial wealth divide Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, October, 2018(83% of people surveyed gave up necessities like rent, food, medical bills, car payments, and child support, in order to pay down their court debt.)
How New Orleans Funds JusticeVera Institute of Justice, September, 2018“New Orleans's criminal justice system has a funding structure that requires the court and other justice system agencies to raise revenues by imposing fees on people who come in contact with the system.”
Nowhere to Go: Homelessness among formerly incarcerated people Prison Policy Initiative, August, 2018“Formerly incarcerated people are almost 10 times more likely to be homeless than the general public.”
Criminal Justice Administrative Fees: High Pain for People, Low Gain for Government The Financial Justice Project of San Francisco, May, 2018“Over the last six years, more than 265,000 fines and fees have been charged to local individuals, totaling almost $57 million.”
Racial Bias in Bail DecisionsDavid Arnold, Will Dobbie, and Crystal S. Yang, April, 2018“Estimates from Miami and Philadelphia show that bail judges are racially biased against black defendants, with substantially more racial bias among both inexperienced and part-time judges.”
Cuyahoga County Bail Task Force: Report and Recommendations Cuyahoga County Bail Task Force, March, 2018(Money bail should not be used to simply detain defendants. Rather than relying on bond schedules, courts should assess each defendant's risk of non-appearance and danger to the community using a uniform risk assessment tool.)
Presumed Innocent for a Price: The Impact of Cash Bail Across Eight New York Counties New York Civil Liberties Union, March, 2018(This report shows that over a five year period, tens of thousands of New Yorkers were jailed without having had their day in court simply because they could not pay bail.)
New data highlights pre-incarceration disadvantagesPrison Policy Initiative, March, 2018“Boys born into families at the bottom 10% of the income distribution are 20 times more likely to experience prison in their 30's than their peers born into the top 10%.”
"Set up to Fail": The Impact of Offender-Funded Private Probation on the Poor Human Rights Watch, February, 2018“This report examines the use and impact of privatized probation services for misdemeanor offenses in four US states, and provides recommendations to protect against the abuses of criminal justice debt.”
A Pound of Flesh The Criminalization of Private Debt American Civil Liberties Union, February, 2018“Arrests stemming from private debt are devastating communities across the country, and amount to a silent financial crisis that, due to longstanding racial & economic inequalities, is disproportionately affecting people of color & low-income communities.”
Civil Asset Forfeiture: Forfeiting Your Rights Southern Poverty Law Center, January, 2018(This report finds that civil asset forfeiture snares mostly low-level offenders and many individuals who are never charged with a crime in the first place into an unequal system that undercuts due process and property rights.)
The Price for Freedom: Bail in the City of L.A. Million Dollar Hoods, December, 2017(The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), using the Los Angeles County Superior Court's misdemeanor and felony bail schedules, levied over $19 billion in money bail on persons they arrested between 2012 and 2016.)
Policing the Houseless 2.0Million Dollar Hoods, December, 2017“This report documents that LAPD arrests of houseless persons continued to climb during the first six months of 2017 and that just five charge categories accounted for the majority of houseless arrests.”
Criminal Justice Debt Costs and Consequences The Fortune Society, October, 2017“In the United States today, people owe local, state, and federal governments billions of dollars in unpaid debt related to contact with the criminal justice system.”
Driven by Dollars: A State-By-State Analysis of Driver's License Suspension Laws for Failure to Pay Court Debt Legal Aid Justice Center, September, 2017“43 states (and D.C.) suspend driver's licenses because of unpaid court debt.”
Seizing Chicago: Drug stings and asset forfeiture target the poor Prison Policy Initiative, August, 2017“Instead of protecting Chicago's communities, state asset forfeiture practices and drug stings set up by federal agents target low-income, Black, and Latino residents, setting them up to fail.”
Trends in State Courts Fines, Fees, and Bail Practices--Challenges and Opportunities National Center for State Courts, July, 2017“Low-income offenders in many towns and cities are faced with paying fines and fees they simply cannot afford, often leading to even more fees and late charges.”
Paying More for Being Poor: Bias and Disparity in California's Traffic Court System Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, May, 2017“The available county-level data shows that African-American people in particular are four to sixteen times more likely to be booked on arrests related to failure to pay an infraction ticket.”
How much do incarcerated people earn in each state?Wendy Sawyer, Prison Policy Initiative, April, 2017“[P]risons appear to be paying incarcerated people less today than they were in 2001. The average of the minimum daily wages paid to incarcerated workers for non-industry prison jobs is now 87 cents, down from 93 cents reported in 2001.”
Right to Counsel Services in the 50 States: An Indigent Defense Reference Guide for Policymakers Sixth Amendment Center, March, 2017“The variations amongst how states deal with the Sixth Amendment does not stop at funding and oversight. The number of structural approaches to providing lawyers to the poor is great.”
How Do People in High-Crime, Low-Income Communities View the Police?Urban Institute, February, 2017“27.8% of respondents agreed/strongly agreed that police almost always behave according to the law. Approximately one-third agreed or strongly agreed that police stand up for values that are important to them and often arrest people for no good reason.”
Sentencing Outcomes in U.S. District Courts: Can Offenders' Educational Attainment Guard Against Prevalent Criminal Stereotypes? Travis W. Franklin, Sam Houston State University, February, 2017“[C]ourt actors may be less concerned (or not at all concerned) with factors typically linked to perceptions of dangerousness (e.g., race, ethnicity, age, sex, detention status) when dealing with offenders of higher educational status.”
Helping Moms, Dads, & Kids To Come Home: Eliminating Barriers to Housing for People with Criminal Records Legal Action Center, December, 2016“America’s “revolving-door” approach to mass incarceration is inextricably linked to the problem of homelessness.”
Highlights from the U.S. PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults: Their Skills, Work Experience, Education, and Training National Center for Education Statistics, November, 2016“Around two-thirds of the survey’s respondents reported that they were working prior to their incarceration: about half of them were employed full-time, with another 16 percent working part-time.”
Ban The Box In Employment: A Grassroots History All Of Us or None (Legal Services for Prisoners With Children), October, 2016“Today, between all of the states and localities that have Ban the Box, over 185 million Americans now live in areas that have adopted fair chance hiring policies.”
"Forced into Breaking the Law": The Criminalization of Homelessness in Connecticut Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, October, 2016“This cycle of incarceration and homelessness comes at a steep cost to people experiencing homelessness, as well as to taxpayers, all while failing to address the root cause of homelessness: a lack of housing solutions.”
The Economic Burden of Incarceration in the U.S.Institute for Advancing Justice Research and Innovation, October, 2016“This study estimates the annual economic burden of incarceration in the United States [by including] important social costs...an aggregate burden of one trillion dollars.”
Confronting Criminal Justice Debt: A Guide for Policy Reform Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School, September, 2016“By disproportionately burdening poor people with financial sanctions, and by jailing people who lack the means to pay, many jurisdictions have created a two-tiered system of criminal justice.”
Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Statistical Discrimination: A Field Experiment Amanda Agan and Sonja Starr, June, 2016“Our results confirm that criminal records are a major barrier to employment, but they also support the concern that BTB policies encourage statistical discrimination on the basis of race.”
The Crippling Effect of Incarceration on WealthPrison Policy Initiative, April, 2016“Once released, that individual may make gains in wealth accumulation, but they will always remain at significantly lower levels of wealth compared to those who are never incarcerated in their lifetime.”
Jobs After Jail: Ending the prison to poverty pipeline Alliance for a Just Society, February, 2016“For the 70 million adults with a serious misdemeanor or felony arrest or conviction record and the hundreds of thousands more each year released from prison, their record can be a life sentence of poverty and low wages.”
Too High a Price: What Criminalizing Homelessness Costs Colorado Homeless Advocacy Policy Project, February, 2016“Cities issue citations to homeless residents at a staggering rate.”
Right to Counsel in Utah: An Assessment of Trial-Level Indigent Defense Services Sixth Amendment Center, October, 2015“Utah’s trial courts do not uniformly provide counsel to indigent defendants at all critical stages of criminal cases as required by the U.S. Supreme Court[.]”
No Right to Rest: Criminalizing Homelessness in Colorado The Denver Homeless Out Loud Report Team, April, 2015“In addition to formal citation and arrest, this survey finds evidence of extrajudicial harassment of homeless people. Both police and private security forces commonly harass and enforce punishments on homeless people, even without legal authority to do so”
Driving on Empty: Florida's Counterproductive and Costly Driver's License Suspension Practices Fines & Fees Justice Center, 2015“Between 2015-2017, more than 3.5 million suspension notices were issued for unpaid court debt.”
The Debt Spiral: How Chicago's Vehicle Ticketing Practices Unfairly Burden Low-Income and Minority Communities Woodstock Institute, 2015“Tickets are disproportionally issued to drivers from low-income and minority areas, who then become trapped in an inescapable cycle of debt simply because they lack the means to pay these tickets.”
No Safe Place: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, July, 2014“Despite a lack of affordable housing and shelter space, many cities have chosen to criminally punish people living on the street for doing what any human being must do to survive.”
The Degree of Disadvantage: Incarceration and Inequality in Education Stephanie Ewert, Bryan L. Sykes, and Becky Pettit, November, 2013“Nearly three in ten white male dropouts in the United States can expect to serve time in a state or federal correctional facility in their lifetime, and nearly 60 percent of black male dropouts are imprisoned at some point in their lives...”
The Impact of Incarceration on Food Insecurity among Households with ChildrenSally Wallace and Robynn Cox, October, 2012“Food insecurity for adults and households with children (a less dire level of food insecurity than very low food security) is affected by parental incarceration under most specifications with magnitudes of impact from 4 to 15 percentage points.”
Realigning Justice Resources A Review of Population and Spending Shifts in Prison and Community Corrections Vera Institute of Justice, September, 2012“Between 2009 and 2010, Vera observed a stark downward shift in expenditures across many states and systems of prison and community corrections despite variations in population change—a consequence, perhaps, of shrinking state budgets.”
In For a Penny The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons American Civil Liberties Union, October, 2010“Incarcerating indigent defendants unable to pay their legal financial obligations often ends up costing much more than states and counties can ever hope to recover.”
The Hidden Costs of Criminal Justice DebtBrennan Center for Justice, October, 2010“Although 'debtors' prison' is illegal in all states, reincarcerating individuals for failure to pay debt is, in fact, common in some -- and in all states new paths back to prison are emerging for those who owe criminal justice debt.”
Compounded Disadvantage Race, Incarceration, and Wage Growth National Poverty Center, October, 2008“Multilevel growth curve models show that black inmates earn considerably less than white inmates, even after considering human capital variables and prior work histories. Furthermore, racial divergence in wages among inmates increases following release...”
Profiting from the Poor A Report on Predatory Probation Companies in Georgia Southern Center for Human Rights, July, 2008“The privatization of misdemeanor probation has placed unprecedented law enforcement authority in the hands of for-profit companies that act essentially as collection agencies.”
Repaying DebtsJustice Center, October, 2007“Financial pressures and paycheck garnishment resulting from unpaid debt can increase participation in the underground economy and discourage legitimate employment.”
An Analysis of the Performance of Federal Indigent Defense CounselNational Bureau of Economic Research, June, 2007“The federal indigent defense system relies on both salaried government workers... and hourly-wage earning court-appointed private [CJA] attorneys.... Defendants with CJA ... attorneys are... more likely to be found guilty and... receive longer sentences.”
Abandoned & Abused: Orleans Parish Prison in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina ACLU National Prison Project, August, 2006
Treated Like Trash: Juvenile Detention in New Orleans Before, During, and After Hurricane Katrina Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, May, 2006“In their own words, a harrowing tale of escape, mismanagement and neglect unfolds, illustrating deep problems in New Orleans' system of juvenile justice and how we treat children in New Orleans.”
A Report on Pre- and Post-Katrina Indigent Defense in New OrleansSouthern Center for Human Rights, April, 2006“More than six months after Katrina, a majority of [indigent defendants] remain behind bars, where they have languished on average for over a year without any communication with a defense attorney.”
Human Rights in the Heartland: An assessment of social, economic, civil, and political rights in the Midwest Heartland Alliance, December, 2005“Historically, the U.S. has been a beacon of hope for those seeking safety and opportunity, but our nation falls short of its potential in assuring a full complement of human rights - civil, political, social, economic, and cultural.”
