The Financial Impact of Criminal Charges — An Unequal Debt to Society (Part Three)

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walawlibrary

5 min readOct 15, 2020

**On June 4, 2020 the Washington Supreme Court issued an open letter to the judiciary and legal community recognizing deep-seated and continuing institutional racial injustice and calling for action to address systemic inequities. The Washington State Law Library is dedicated to furthering the Court’s goal by publishing stories that highlight the historical context surrounding systemic racism and efforts to dismantle it.**

This is the last of a three-part series examining the financial impact of criminal charges for people of color in Washington State. In the weeks since the first two parts of this series were published, there have been some developments on the local level. Last month, Seattle Municipal Courts eliminated some fees in criminal cases, removing one barrier to finding success after a criminal conviction. Pierce County has also released a report confirming a racial disparity in arrest rates for Black people in every jurisdiction in their county.

We would also like to share an opportunity to learn more about racial equity in the justice system. The 2020 Virtual Symposium on Racial Equity is available to the public with advanced registration. The programs on October 16 will discuss felony rights restoration and race equity in the courts. On November 13 the topics include policing and monuments to hate.

Cities & Counties for Fine and Fee Justice in their guide Roadmap to Bold and Equitable Fine and Fee Reform report that local officials working toward meaningful reform share the following beliefs:

1. It is possible to hold people accountable without putting them in financial distress.
2. People with lower incomes should not face more severe consequences than middle- and upper-income residents.
3. Governments should not balance their books on the backs of their most distressed communities.

In Washington State, action at both the state and local levels are driven by these same beliefs. In part One of this series we provided background on the impact of bail and fees. In part Two we discussed changes to bail and pretrial process laws. In this final installment, we offer a comprehensive list of additional resources on these topics.

Self Help Sources

Do You Owe Money to the Court (LFOs) because of a Criminal Conviction? — Washington Law Help (Spanish / Español)

How to Ask a Washington State Court to Reduce or Waive Your Legal Financial Obligations — Washington Law Help

Questions and Answers about Legal Financial Obligations (LFOs) — ACLU Washington

Washington State Court Forms: Waive or Reduce Interest on LFO

Books

The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (E185.61 .R8185 2017) Read our review of this book here

Colorblind: The Rise of Post-racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity by Tim Wise (E185.615 .W557 2010)

Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America by James Forman, Jr. (HV9950 .F655 2017)

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander (HV9950 .A437 2010 )

Policing the Black Man: Arrest, Prosecution, and Imprisonment edited and with an introduction by Angela J. Davis (HV9950 .P64 2017)

A Pound of Flesh : Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor by Alexes Harris (KF9745 .H37 2016)

The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America by Charles J. Ogletree (E185.615 O35 2010)

Punishment Without Crime: How our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal by Alexandra Natapoff (KF9300 .N38 2018) Read our review of this book here

Articles

Decriminalizing Non-Appearance in Washington State: The Problem and Solutions for Washington’s Bail Jumping Statute and Court Nonappearance, Aleksandrea E. Johnson, 18 Seattle J. For Soc. Just. 433 (2020)

Debt Bondage: How Private Collection Agencies Keep the Formerly Incarcerated Tethered to the Criminal Justice System, Bryan L. Adamson, 15 Nw J. L. & Soc. Pol’y 305 (2020)

The Disparate Financial Impact of the American Justice System, Laura Bliss, Bloomberg CityLab (2020)

Eliminating the Criminal Debt Exception for Debtors’ Prisons, Cortney E. Lollar, 98 N.C. L. Rev. 427 (2020)

How Much Is Too Much? A Test to Protect Against Excessive Fines, Daniel S. Harawa, 81 Ohio St. L.J. 65 (2020)

More “Municipal” Than “Court”: Using the Eleventh Amendment to Hold Municipal Courts Liable for Their Modern-Day Debtors’ Prisons Practices, Sonya Levitova, 23 CUNY L. Rev. 113 (2020)

(Color)Blind Reform: How Ability-To-Pay Determinations are Inadequate to Transform a Racialized System of Penal Debt, Theresa Zhen, 43 NYU Rev. L. & Soc. Change 175 (2019)

Civil Rights/Constitutional Law — Indebted to the State: How the Thirteenth Amendment’s Promise of Abolition Holds Protections Against the Modern Debtors’ Prisons, Sarah Morgan, 39 W. New Eng. L. Rev. 327 (2017)

The Debtors’ Prison Scheme: Yet Another Bar In the Birdcage of Mass Incarceration of Communities of Color, Olivia C. Jerjian, 41 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 235 (2017)

Discretionary Disenfranchisement: The Case of Legal Financial Obligations, Marc Meredith & Michael Morse, 46 Journal of Legal Studies 309 (2017)

“Give Us Free”: Addressing Racial Disparities In Bail Determinations, Cynthia E. Jones, 16 N.Y.U. J. Legis. & Pub. Pol’y 919 (2013)

The Role of Courts in Eliminating the Racial Impact of Criminal Justice Debt, Larry Schwartztol, NCSC Trends in State Courts (2017)