It's like a reverse Robin Hood—We all know they can't pay”

How court actors navigate the logics of monetary sanctions

Bibliographic Data

ID9681472
AuthorsSarah K S Shannon (0000-0001-7192-5850, Department of Sociology University of Georgia Athens Georgia USA, corresponding author), Alexes Harris (0000-0002-5098-7355, Department of Sociology University of Washington Seattle Washington USA), Tyler Smith (0000-0002-3119-259X, Department of Sociology University of Washington Seattle Washington USA), M Pattillo (0000-0003-0717-169X, Northwestern University), Karin D Martins (0000-0003-1094-6425, University of Washington), Karin Martin (Evans School of Public Policy & Governance University of Washington Seattle Washington USA), Ilya Slavinski (Criminal Justice and Sociology Dominican University Orangeburg New York USA), Robert Stewart (0000-0002-6326-915X, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice University of Maryland College Park Maryland USA), Andrea Giuffre (0000-0002-1454-6907, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice California State University San Bernadino California USA), Aubrianne l Sutherland (University of California, Irvine Irvine California USA)
Year2025
Volume63
Issue1
Pages26-57
Publication date2025-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCriminology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-1384 • E-ISSN: 1745-9125
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1745-9125.12400
PMID41346396
OpenAlexW4408762210
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited61

Monetary sanctions (also known as legal financial obligations or LFOs) are the most common form of state sanction for criminal convictions, yet we know little about the logics that court actors use in their implementation. Merging an inhabited institutions perspective with the institutional logics framework, we present evidence from court actors’ accounts of imposing and collecting LFOs to reveal how they navigate the competing penal and fiscal logics of LFO sentencing across eight states. We show that the polyvalent logics underlying LFOs give rise to individual and collective critiques. Amid this discontent, we discern several patterns in how court actors navigate the tensions between coexisting logics and continue their work unabated, including the use of discretion and prioritization of some goals over others. Our analysis demonstrates how court actors make sense of their work within a complex legal field rife with conflicting priorities and how LFO sentencing and collection persist despite the contradictory logics undergirding them. Our theoretical model connecting institutional logics and inhabited institutions frameworks elucidates how decision‐making in the criminal legal system operates. Although we specifically examine monetary sanctions, our findings have implications for other contexts in which decision‐makers struggle with interpretation, application, and consequence

Economics · Law and economics · Political science · Sanctions · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Political and Economic history of UK and US

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Open DOIOpen Access