Perilous practice
Fines, fees keep poor locked up
Thousands of Arkansans are living under threat of misdemeanor warrants because they are unable to pay court-imposed fines, fees and costs. Individuals, including children, have been incarcerated in Arkansas jails for weeks and even months, simply because they cannot afford to pay court-imposed fines, fees and costs.
Others have had their driver’s licenses suspended by the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration for nonpayment of court-imposed fines, fees, and costs, even if the underlying offense had nothing to do with driving.
——————— Unfortunately, this situation is not unique to Arkansas. In cities and towns throughout the United States, court operations have become a primary source of revenue generation. Defendants face pressure to plead guilty quickly. They are then fined and placed on payment plans or “probation” if they do not have the money to immediately pay their fines and additional court costs and fees. Sometimes more fees are added to already unmanageable debt to pay private “probation” companies that oversee the terms of probation and community service.
Since many of these defendants live paycheck to paycheck, or disability check to disability check, they will eventually miss payments.
Similarly, because the private probation companies often demand frequent reporting visits, many individuals will eventually miss these appointments due to lack of transportation or because they cannot afford to repeatedly miss work in order to report. Others will miss appearances before probation companies and the courts because they are afraid to appear with no money to pay their outstanding debt.
Poor people ultimately pay more for fines and fees in the form of longterm payment plans with high interest rates, and for additional penalties and costs associated with missed payments. The result? A cycle of debt and incarceration from which it is nearly impossible to escape.
Fines and fees are also a barrier to re-entry for the formerly incarcerated. Lacking the resources to pay off the debts, they are routinely denied access to the driver’s licenses and state-issued IDs necessary to obtain housing and employment.
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law partnered with the ACLU of Arkansas in 2017 to address the practice of committing people to jail without any regard for their ability to pay court-imposed debt. We secured an important settlement in Sherwood, where a debtors’ prison resulted from the city’s “hot check court” and the collection of fines and fees constituted the largest source of revenue after city and county sales taxes.
The Lawyers’ Committee also just filed a “friend of the court” brief in a case involving a private probation company, the Justice Network, that sued two judges who ended use of the company’s services in Craighead County.
The incarceration of individuals who are unable to pay court-imposed fines, fees and costs has fed the phenomenon of mass incarceration, a major promoter of inequality within American society. The harmful results of this practice, including the incarceration of individuals for no other reason than their poverty, undermine the basic principle of equal justice under law.
Arkansas must do everything possible to ensure that its legal system is focused on promoting justice rather than raising revenue. Anything less will result in a system for keeping the poor in poverty.