User Funded? Using Budgets to Examine the Scope and Revenue Impact of Fines and Fees in the Criminal Justice System

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2363643
AutoresChris Mai (0000-0002-4965-1977, Vera Institute of Justice, autor de correspondencia), Maria Katarina E Rafael (Vera Institute of Justice)
Año2020
Volumen63
Número6
Páginas1002-1014
Fecha de publicación2020-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSociological Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0731-1214 • E-ISSN: 1533-8673
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0731121420974708
OpenAlexW3117318437
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas5

Criminal justice system fines and fees are a source of revenue for courts, district attorneys, probation departments, and other actors both inside and outside of the justice system. Because these departments rely on fine and fee revenue to partially fund their budgets, they may be incentivized to oppose reforms that would reduce fine and fee collections. Using budget documents from counties and a sample of municipalities in Florida and New York, the authors find that budget reports provide more detailed data on fines and fees than are available from other data sources, including information on which types of fines and fees are collected and how much revenue criminal justice fines and fees provide, both on a per-capita basis and as a share of the total jurisdiction budget. This paper presents a replicable methodology for future research in how to use local government budget documents to evaluate fine and fee collections. A larger, forthcoming study will use this methodology to examine fine and fee collections in five states

Business · Criminal justice · Economic Justice · Economics · Jurisdiction · Per capita · Political science · Public economics · Revenue · Sociology · User fee · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Gambling Behavior and Treatments · Law · Finance