|
<br />
<br />NORTH CAROLINA POVERTY RESEARCH FUND 7
<br />Court Fines and Fees: Criminalizing Poverty in North Carolina
<br />2011, the median amount of court debt owed by residents of Philadelphia who had unpaid debt was about
<br />$4,500.27 With fines and fees reaching into the thousands of dollars, it’s not just the most destitute who
<br />feel their sting. For the almost 60% of Americans who don’t have enough money in savings to cover a
<br />$500 emergency, court costs can overwhelm.28
<br />
<br />Data from North Carolina, while scant, indicates that fees easily reach hundreds of dollars for even small
<br />traffic infractions and misdemeanors. Between January and October 2017, the average amount paid online
<br />for non-contested traffic citations was $226.29 Between January and May 2017, the average fee for a
<br />court-appointed attorney in cases with less serious charges (misdemeanors, traffic cases, probation
<br />violations) was $205.30 Add in common court fees of $200 or so, extra fees for an array of court
<br />“services,” and fines, and the total can easily reach $1,000 without breaking a sweat.
<br />
<br />Court costs snowball when defendants are unable to pay the full debt amount on time and all at once. Late
<br />fees, installment payment fees, collection fees, probation supervision fees and the like hook poor people
<br />in the same way payday loans do—by keeping defendants on a never-ending debt loop. Since a sentence
<br />is not discharged until all court costs are paid in full, a defendant’s continuing legal entanglements puts
<br />him or her at risk of incurring new penalties. This is the nonsensical contradiction at the core of the
<br />system of fines and fees: defendants are punished for failing to climb out of a financial hole that their
<br />court debt makes deeper and more intractable. In the words of one scholar, defendants are forced to pay
<br />over and over, “in a way that dooms them to a perpetual state of poverty and instability.”31
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Poor households have to juggle food, shelter, medicine, transportation and other household necessities
<br />against fines and fees. As one woman we spoke to put it, she and her family were “not as comfortable
<br />with food for [the] month” when she paid a portion of her court bill.32 Defendants also turn to family
<br />members for help in paying fines and fees.33 One study found that 63% of defendants interviewed in a
<br />multi-state study relied on their family to take care of court costs. Nearly half claimed that their families
<br />could not afford those costs and 20% of families had taken out loans to cover them.34 Most of the
<br />
<br />27 Shapiro, “As Court Fees Rise, the Poor Are Paying the Price.”
<br />28 Cornfield, “Bankrate Survey: Just 4 in 10 Americans Have Savings They’d Rely on in an Emergency.”
<br />29 payNCticket Activity, “Statistics,” North Carolina Court System,
<br />http://www.nccourts.org/Citizens/SRPlanning/Statistics/Default.asp.
<br />30 2017, “Fee Transparency,” Office of Indigent Defense Services, http://www.ncids.org/Public/Text.html.
<br />31 Beckett and Harris, “On Cash and Conviction: Monetary Sanctions as Misguided Policy.” 529.
<br />32 Jill Poulos interview with the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund, October 31, 2017.
<br />33 Nagrecha, Katzenstein, and Davis, When All Else Fails, Fining the Family.
<br />34 deVuono-powell et al., Who Pays? 13-14.
<br />The difference $90 makes
<br />
<br />Small dollar amounts can make a big difference in case outcomes and yet ask too much of poor defendants and their families. We
<br />were told of one defendant, a fast food manager with school age children, who was involved in a scuffle and charged with larceny.
<br />He was offered a plea deal: pay $200 and admit to a lesser charge. On the due date, in late August, he only had $110. Promising to
<br />come back later that day with the full amount, he left court and returned his kids’ school supplies to make up the difference. His
<br />next paycheck wasn’t until the end of the month, he didn’t have any extra money and this was the only thing he could think to do to
<br />avoid a more serious charge.
<br />
<br /> “We’re making poor people make choices they shouldn’t have to make,” said his public defender. “And his kids end up paying and
<br />that’s not fair. Sure, [defendants] make stupid mistakes just like the rest of us do. But rich people buy their way out of it.”1
<br />
<br />1.Mani Dexter interview with the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund, August 21, 2017.
|