COLUMBIA UNDERGRADUATE LAW REVIEW
The Lasting Criminalization of Poverty: Court Fees, Fines, and “Implicit” Sentence Enhancements: Gina Feliz | Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs Edited by: Jack Walker, Krishna Menon, Masa Al-Azm, Jeannette Kim, Michelle Lian, Irie Sentner, Jennifer Su Abstract
In our criminal legal system, “paying your debt to society” colloquially references a debt of time served to the carceral apparatus of the criminal legal system, although many criminal justice reform advocates recognize that a justice-impacted individual’s debt to society is never truly forgiven. Too often is this debt of time accompanied by criminal justice debt comprised of unpaid court fees, fines, and restitution. Policy solutions to reduce prison populations and combat mass incarceration often overlook the role of fines and fees in entrapping low-income Americans within the criminal legal system. However, the extensive systems that impose criminal justice debt on indigent defendants are too pervasive to be ignored. The imposition of different fees throughout the criminal legal process is said to “support the operational costs” of courts, but it is more successful in intimidating indigent defendants so that they are unable to properly advocate for themselves throughout the legal process. Fees and fines trap people in cycles of poverty, but they also trap people within the criminal legal system itself by increasing time spent incarcerated, under carceral supervision, or beholden to the criminal legal system in some form.
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