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<br />
<br />NORTH CAROLINA POVERTY RESEARCH FUND 6
<br />Court Fines and Fees: Criminalizing Poverty in North Carolina
<br />of waivers. As a result, judicial waiver—already rarely used—is an endangered species in North Carolina.
<br />Waiver and the ability to pay inquiry are the two main tools available to mitigate or prevent the worst
<br />abuses of fines and fees. As we discuss below, they currently fall far short of the task.
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<br />Consequences of Fines and Fees
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<br />Perpetual debt
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<br />Most criminal defendants are poor. Nationally, about 80-90% of those charged with a criminal offense are
<br />poor enough to qualify for a court-appointed lawyer.17 Around 20% of jail inmates report having no
<br />income before they were incarcerated and 60% earned less than $1,000 per month (in 2002 dollars, about
<br />$16,000 a year now).18 Almost a third of defendants are unemployed before their arrest.19 Many
<br />defendants are disadvantaged in other, related ways. In North Carolina, 30% of prison inmates have no
<br />more than a ninth-grade education; 99% are, at most, high school graduates.20 Seventy percent of newly-
<br />arrived prisoners screened for chemical dependence in North Carolina need substance abuse treatment.21
<br />A state Department of Correction survey found that 36% of people entering prison had been homeless at
<br />some point, and 7% had been homeless immediately before imprisonment. The primary reasons given for
<br />homelessness were unemployment, substance abuse and a previous criminal conviction.22
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<br />Court costs disrupt lives already complicated by poverty and dislocation. “For lots of people, fines and
<br />fees are worse than the conviction,” one expert commented. “The thinking goes, ‘I can keep my job with
<br />the conviction, but I lose my housing with fees.’”23 Fines and fees of a few hundred dollars can present a
<br />substantial hurdle—and several studies show that court debt is often worse.
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<br />Researchers in Washington State found that the average amount of court costs per felony conviction was
<br />$2,450. When the study authors randomly selected 500 defendants out of the larger pool, they found that
<br />these individuals accumulated an average of $11,471 in court debt over time.24 A Texas study estimated
<br />that defendants released to parole owed from $500 to $2000 in court debt.25 A Massachusetts study,
<br />looking at defendants who had spent time in jail due to failure to pay fines and fees, discovered that in
<br />over a third of cases, the defendant owed more than $500—despite most charges being for relatively
<br />minor non-DWI automobile violations or public order offenses (disorderly conduct, trespassing).26 In
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<br />17 Bannon, Nagrecha, and Diller, Criminal Justice Debt, 4.
<br />18 James, Profile of Jail Inmates, 9. In 2015, the median pre-incarceration income for people detained in local jails who could not
<br />make bail was $15,109—or less than half of the median income for non-incarcerated people of a similar age. Rabuy and Kopf,
<br />“Detaining the Poor.”
<br />19 Harris, A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor.
<br />20 North Carolina Department of Public Safety, DPS Research and Planning, Automated System Query,
<br />http://webapps6.doc.state.nc.us/apps/asqExt/ASQ.
<br />21 Division of Adult Correction and Juvenile Justice, Substance Use Disorder Treatment Programs Annual Report, 5.
<br />22 Edwards, Homelessness in the North Carolina Resident Offender Population. 3.
<br />23 Cristina Becker interview with the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund, June 27, 2017.
<br />24 Beckett and Harris, “On Cash and Conviction: Monetary Sanctions as Misguided Policy.” 516. The authors did not include a
<br />variety of legal non-court debts and therefore underestimate the total amount owed by defendants.
<br />25 Bannon, Nagrecha, and Diller, Criminal Justice Debt, 10.
<br />26 Report of the Committee on Post Audit and Oversight, Fine Time Massachusetts: Judges, Poor People, and Debtors Prison in
<br />the 21st Century, 11.
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