Funding provided by The Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF) - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Meghan M. O’Neil, Ph.D. Research Investigator, Population Studies Center Faculty Expert, Poverty Solutions University of Michigan

Funding provided by The Laura and John Arnold Foundation (LJAF)

Definitions

• Fines
• Financial obligations imposed as a penalty after a

criminal conviction or admission of guilt to a civil infraction

• Fees
• Financial obligation imposed to recoup costs for

use of the criminal justice system

Overall Study Overview

Indiana Michigan Texas Pennsylvania North Carolina Massachusetts Arizona

Statement of the Problem

• 4.6 million people in the United States are on community supervision any

given day

• One of the primary reasons offenders are re-incarcerated after serving their

sentence stems from FINES & FEES that result in parole or probation revocation

• 2015 – DOJ Ferguson Report:
• “…Ferguson’s municipal court routinely issues warrants for people to be

arrested and incarcerated for failing to timely pay related fines and fees.”1

• The imposition of fine and fees were primarily used against minorities and

the poor

1 United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, 2015

Controversy

• Poverty penalties and poverty traps
• Ability to pay determination
• Transparency and accountability- who pays $$ and why?
• Conflict of interest if salaries rest upon fines

Widespread Concern

• National and local news outlets
• Vox, HBO, Vice, NPR, WWLP-22 (MA), WISTV (SC)
• Think Tanks, Associations, Policy & Law/Criminal Justice Centers
• American Bar Association, PolicyLink, Right on Crime, Vera

Institute of Justice, Southern Poverty Law Center, LJAF, Brennan Center for Justice, National Center for State Courts

• Universities
• Reports/Panels/Articles from: John Jay, University of

Pennsylvania, Harvard Law School, UC-Berkeley

Little Prior Research

• States do not report (or calculate) criminal justice debt

information

• Lack of previous research on:
• How fines and fees operate/are used in the CJ

system

• The impact of fines and fees on individuals, their

families, and their communities

Project Goals

• Systemically analyze how fines and fees operate in

community corrections

• Impact of fines and fees, and related factors, on

supervision success

• Ensure operation of community corrections

departments at a fair and cost-effective level

Additional Goals

• Review temporal policy changes to identify “causal inference”

between fines and subsequent criminal activity

• Merge cases with administrative data from the Unemployment

Insurance Agency to conduct more robust financial models

• Merge cases with neighborhood level (Census Tract or Block) data to

conduct HLM analysis considering poverty, crime, and fines

Research Questions

• 1. What types of fines, fees, and restitution are individuals on probation and parole

assessed?

• 2. What is the total departmental revenue collected from fines and fees in a given

year?

• 3. Are probationers/parolees receiving civil judgments for nonpayment? If so, what

types of civil judgments do they receive?

• 4. What is the impact of fines and fees on probation for the probationer/parolee?
• 5. What structural features of supervision agencies are associated with fees and fines?
• 6. How do fines and fees impact probationers’ and parolees’ families, including the

economic stability of family members who contribute to the payment of fees and fines?

• 7. Do the financial benefits of fees, to agencies, outweigh the costs of those

collections?

Project Design

• Pull date
• 2012 à date supervision

begins

• Follow up data: 2013 à 2017
• At least 3 probation and 3

parole agencies in each state

• Rural, suburban, & urban

Site Overview – Michigan

Supervision in Michigan

• Probationers can have (3) probation officers

at one time with (3) sets of fees and 3x the appointments and obligations relative to

• ther states
• Felony, misdemeanor, community

corrections/pre-trial

Example of MI Court Fines

Data Collection

• All cases which began community supervision during 2012
• Records through December 31st, 2017

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Start Community Supervision Case Status: 12/31/2013 Case Status: 12/31/2014 Case Status: 12/31/2015 Case Status: 12/31/2016 Case Status: 12/31/2017

Measures

• Administrative Data
• Probation, parole, supervision, and court records
• Fine and fee payment information
• Qualitative data
• Interviews with probationers/parolees, probationer/parolee family members,

and correctional staff

Administrative Data

• Offender Characteristics
• Demographic, income, & housing
• Offense, health, and substance

history

• Instant Offense
• Type, level, description of offense
• Sentencing information
• Institutional supervision
• Important dates
• Community Supervision
• Conditions, terms, and dates of

2012 supervision

• Supervision adjustments
• Violation, Revocation, and

Absconded

• Important dates
• Description/Reasoning
• Outcomes

Administrative Data

• Fines, Fees, and Restitution
• Important dates
• Description
• Amount assessed,

delinquent, & paid

• Modification amount &

reason

• Modification reason
• Civil Judgments
• Important dates
• Type
• Reason/Description

Qualitative Data

• Surveys
• Parole & Probation Officers
• 2019
• Web-based
• Interviews
• Probationer/Parolee &

Family Member

• 2020
• In-person

Analytic Plan

• Descriptive statistics
• Average amount of fees/fines assessed and

collected

• Types of fines/fees assessed and collected
• Number of waivers granted
• Reason for waiver
• Number of cases violated, sanctioned, or

revoked for fees

• Bivariate Correlations
• Associations using fines/fees, demographics,

supervision characteristics, district type, etc.

• Cost-benefit analysis
• Examine the relationship between fines/fees

and community supervision outcomes

• OLS Regression
• Logistic Regression
• Cox proportional hazard models
• Multi-state analysis
• Examine agency level effects, individual level

effects, and interactions

• Multi-level modeling

Thank you