Lawmakers target juvenile court fees that experts say keep youth, families in debt
Angelia Smith dreams of purchasing a home for her family, but a factor on her credit report has made getting a mortgage harder: delinquent debt from juvenile court fees.
The 40-year-old Leesburg woman says the $828 debt stems from her son, who got into trouble as a teenager and racked up costs from his involvement in the juvenile justice system. Her son didn’t have a license, but his driving privileges were still suspended, Smith said.
Now 21 years old, her son still does not drive because he can’t afford to reinstate his license, Smith said.
“To be honest, it’s cruel to me,” Smith said. “It’s very shocking.”
As a bipartisan group of Florida lawmakers is backing legislation that would reform juvenile court fees, a report released this week underscored their widespread impact on children and families across the state.
The Jan. 25 study from the Fines And Fees Justice Center and the Juvenile Law Center shows Florida imposed $5.1 million in court fees against youth in 2019, but only collected 11% of those costs — nearly $842,320. Only about 16% of juvenile court fees were collected in 2018 from the $6.2 million assessed, according to data provided by the center.
Like adults, juveniles face 31 different fees, regardless of guilt, including a $50 public defender fee, medical care charges and the costs of detention and probation supervision, according to the study. The report notes young people typically don’t have jobs or the money to pay these fees, which means the debt often falls to their families.
“It impacts these kids and their families for years,” said Sarah Couture, the center’s state director. “It keeps people in poverty.”
The bills filed October in the House and Senate, known as the Debt-Free Justice for Children Act, would eliminate court fees imposed on juveniles, vacate outstanding fees and debt, and reinstate driving privileges for those who lost them after failing to pay. The legislation would not prevent judges from ordering juveniles to pay restitution to victims.
“Parents are often forced to make an impossible choice: put food on the table or pay down court debt,” said Sen. Lauren Book, the Democratic minority leader from Plantation, in a statement.
Other states, including Texas and Louisiana, have recently passed reforms to end juvenile court fees, lawmakers said.
“The impact of court debt lasts into adulthood and significantly decreases a young person’s prospect for achieving his or her potential and contributing to Florida’s economy,” said Rep. Vance Aloupis, the Republican who co-sponsored the House bill with fellow Miamibased lawmaker Democratic Rep. Nicholas Duran, in a statement.
Orange County Clerk of Courts Tiffany Moore Russell said her office stopped sending juvenile court fees to collection agencies in 2016.
“It was just seen as not a good business practice [to send] juveniles to a collection agency,” she said.
The amount assessed against juveniles in Orange has decreased over the past five years from $766,030 in fiscal year 2017 to $144,735 in fiscal year 2021, according to data provided by Moore Russell’s office. Out of the $102,765 collected in 2021, the office kept $3,827 while the rest was distributed to other state and local agencies.
The financial impact of eliminating juvenile court fees on clerks’ offices across Florida would be “minimal,” totaling about $150,000 in lost funding statewide, said Moore Russell, who is also treasurer
of the Florida Court Clerks and Comptrollers association.
Still, she said she is concerned the legislation includes no acknowledgment of the costs involved in operating juvenile cases. Clerks offices are funded by fines, fees and court costs — a model that Moore Russell has previously described as “broken.”
“In Orange County, we have a juvenile courthouse, so it is fully staffed with trial clerks, a manager [and] a supervisor,” she said. “We have struggled for years without funding. As far as this bill, the fiscal impact is minimal. The issue really is the principle — the more and more the Legislature takes away the fees, we have to be able to address the lack of funding that is there for clerks.”
But Couture argues one of the goals of Florida’s juvenile justice system is rehabilitation as opposed to the adult system’s focus on carceral punishment.
“These fees become penalizing,” she said.
The report from the Fines And Fees Justice Center cites a study that found “higher recidivism rates for youth with court fines and fees imposed.” Juvenile court fees disproportionately affect Black youth and their families, who make up 21% of Florida’s population but more than half of juvenile arrests and adjudications, the report said.
Couture said the center has created an advisory board in South Florida with adults impacted by juvenile court fees.
“We know somebody who’s 30 — he just turned 30 — and he’s still paying on these fees from when he was a child,” she said. “These [fees] don’t just go away, they stay with them.”