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<br />
<br />NORTH CAROLINA POVERTY RESEARCH FUND 17
<br />Court Fines and Fees: Criminalizing Poverty in North Carolina
<br />incarceration.92 Monetary sanctions, considered “integral to systems of criminal justice, debt bondage,
<br />and racial domination in the American South for decades,” have transmuted into a new type of peonage.93
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<br />In September 2017, African Americans were over half of prisoners in North Carolina despite making up
<br />21% of the general population.94 The rate of incarceration for blacks per 100,000 people is four times that
<br />for whites.95 North Carolina’s youth of color are over-represented in the juvenile justice system and are
<br />treated worse than whites at every turn.96 State data on traffic stops, searches and arrests show that black
<br />and Hispanic motorists are disproportionately targeted at each juncture.97 Municipal level data produces
<br />similar results. In 2017, police departments in two of North Carolina’s largest cities, Charlotte and
<br />Greensboro, searched black motorists at more than twice the rate for white motorists despite the fact that
<br />each group’s contraband hit rates for the past fifteen years are almost identical.98
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<br />Approximately 10 million people nationwide owe more than $50 billion in criminal justice debt.99 This
<br />represents a massive disinvestment in poor and minority neighborhood—not at the hands of an
<br />exploitative subprime lender but the government itself. In the larger picture, fines and fees combine with
<br />other social and economic challenges, leading to the “accumulation of disadvantage” and deepening
<br />racial, ethnic and economic inequality.100
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<br />Fines and fees have a corrosive effect on criminal justice system
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<br />Fines and fees are unfair and excessively punitive, and defendants know it. They breed resentment and
<br />suspicion of the courts and the legal system more broadly, eroding legitimacy and fomenting cynicism.
<br />Defendants with debt have described how “the criminal justice system was designed to make them fail
<br />and remain under criminal justice surveillance.”101 One woman we interviewed characterized fines and
<br />fees as “insane, way too high.” From her point of view, “it’s just greed.”102
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<br />The futility of trying to pay off insurmountable debt and the fear of arrest generated by excessive fines
<br />and fees cause people to drop out of mainstream institutions. Once that happens:
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<br />92 For a good summary of the historical and race-based roots of “extractive practices” like fines and fees, see Murch, “Paying for
<br />Punishment: The New Debtors’ Prison” and Birckhead, “The New Peonage.”
<br />93 Harris, Evans, and Beckett, “Drawing Blood from Stones,” 1758.
<br />94 North Carolina Department of Public Safety Research and Planning, Automated System Query,
<br />http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/asqExt/ASQ and 2016 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, DP05,
<br />https://factfinder.census.gov/.
<br />95 As of September 2017, the rate of incarceration for blacks in North Carolina is 913 per 100,000; the rate for whites is 234 per
<br />100,000. North Carolina Department of Public Safety Research and Planning, Automated System Query,
<br />http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/asqExt/ASQ and 2016 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, DP05,
<br />https://factfinder.census.gov/.
<br />96 North Carolina Office of the Juvenile Defender, Addressing Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) in Juvenile
<br />Delinquency Court.
<br />97 Baumgartner and Epp, North Carolina Traffic Stop Statistics Analysis, Final Report to the North Carolina Advocates for
<br />Justice Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Bias, 5-8.
<br />98 “Open Data Policing,” Southern Coalition for Social Justice, https://opendatapolicing.com/nc/. See LaFraniere and Lehren,
<br />“The Disproportionate Risks of Driving While Black.”
<br />99 Eisen, Charging Inmates Perpetuates Mass Incarceration, 1.
<br />100 Harris, Evans, and Beckett, “Drawing Blood from Stones: Legal Debt and Social Inequality in the Contemporary United
<br />States,” 1789.
<br />101 Harris, A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor, 59.
<br />102 Jill Poulos interview with the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund, October 31, 2017.
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