MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A recent study into Alabama’s system of court fees and fines showed a growing majority go unpaid, creating budget shortfalls and an incentive structure bent toward prosecutions.
The study from MDRC Center for Criminal Justice Research, found inequities in debt burdens from court fees, with black Alabamians found to be issued higher legal financial obligations, on average, than their white counterparts for the same charges.
The study was collaboration Alabama Appleseed, UAB, and the 10th Judicial Circuit of Alabama.
“This information has been shocking to carry around, how bad the incentives are, how broken this system is, and how really no one is benefiting from it,” said Appleseed’s Leah Nelson, founder of the research project.
Dubbed the Jefferson County Equitable Fines and Fees Project, the study was launched years ago by Nelson, research director at Alabama Appleseed, along with a number of experts in law, quantitative research and criminal justice.
Published this week, the study analyzed tens of thousands of non-public documents made available by the court systems in Jefferson County from between 2015 and 2019. Interviews were conducted with nearly 1,000 individuals who had interacted with the court system.
Among the initial findings was how frequently court fines, which in Jefferson County are increased by 30% if late by 90 days, remain unpaid indefinitely.
“One thing we noticed is that the most common amount of money that people pay is zero, and so that was a big finding for me because for my quantitative brain, it just made me know this is real,” Sarah Picard, co-founder of the project and director at MDRC, told ADN.
Between 2015 and 2019, 54.8% of cases in Jefferson County had no payments made toward court fines and fees. Individuals who paid in full represented just 22.3% of cases.
The share of individuals in Jefferson County fully paying their court fines was also found to be on a downward trend, from 26.4% in 2015 to 19.1% in 2019.
Revenue from court fines and fees fund different government entities in varying amounts, such as the District Attorney’s office in Jefferson County. That revenue is also used to make crime victims whole through restitution and compensation.
That court fee revenue is not distributed on a proportional basis, but rather via a priority system.
Under this system, the state’s General Fund, the District Attorney Fund and even some private entities like the American Village in Shelby County are to receive their share of the revenue in full before lower-priority entities receive anything.
Crime victims’ compensation is the last level of priority.
“Specifically in the instance of people who are owed restitution because something was stolen from them, they’re at the bottom of the list of entities that are due to be given any revenue that comes in, so that is massively unjust and incredibly troubling,” Nelson told ADN.
Inequities in court fines and fees
The study showed what appear to be racial inequities in terms of what groups of Jefferson County residents were impacted the most from court fines and fees.
Out of more than 15,000 individuals with nearly 24,000 court cases, 71% of individuals were represented by a public defender, which researchers often use as a proxy for indigence, and of that pool, 70% were black.
While the average outstanding court balance of those with cases exceeded $900 per person across all ethnicities, black defendants were, on average, found to have higher outstanding balances “than their white counterparts for the same charges,” the study reads.
A primary contributor for non-payments was the 30% late fee, known as a D999 collections fee, which was more common among those living in extreme poverty and unable to pay the initial fines.
Inefficiencies in revenue, public safety
Inefficiencies in the court fines and fees system creates an unstable funding source for government, particularly in law enforcement.
“In terms of what we’ve seen in Jefferson County, you’re only collecting about 30 cents to every dollar assessed, which is pretty low when compared to other types of revenue,” Pete Jones, an associate professor at University of Alabama at Birmingham and co-founder of the project, told ADN.
“In fact, we saw really only a quarter of the cases ever get paid off, which really speaks to that inefficiency, that you’re basically having to keep up with 75% of all cases in perpetuity.”
Beyond the low return on dollars spent attempting to recoup court fines from Alabamians often without the means to pay, as a funding mechanism for district attorney offices, Jones said, made even less sense.
“When we think about courts, we’re using user fees to fund something that we all benefit from, and that’s incongruent, it just doesn’t make sense,” he said.
“For the Legislature, it would make way more sense for them to just fund it with broader-based taxes,” he suggested.
A recent example of the pitfalls of using court fees as a revenue source for district attorney offices came from Limestone County, when in July, District Attorney Brian Jones sent a letter to 700 crime victims asking them to petition local leadership to fund his office, which was facing a $264,000 budget shortfall.
The Limestone County District Attorney is funded 40% from the state; the Limestone County Commission does not fund the office.
When Jones asked the commission to help fill the budget shortfall, Commissioner Danny Barksdale suggested instead that the county “raise the court costs (and) increase the fines” to make up the difference, according to AL.com.
The Jefferson County District Attorney office is funded in part by the Jefferson County Commission, something Jefferson County District Attorney Danny Carr said was “a godsend.” Even with the additional funding, however, his office is still forced to use revenue from fees and fines fund basic operating expenses.
“Even with the county commission going above and beyond the call of duty to subsidize our budget, we still have a shortfall as well,” Carr told ADN. “That gives you an indication of what an office looks like that doesn’t have that subsidy.”
District attorney offices without their respective counties subsidizing their budget, Carr said, also led to worse outcomes for those facing criminal charges.
“Some offices can’t even offer diversion courses in their county because they don’t have the money, which then punishes the citizen who can commit the same crime in Jefferson County, but in another county that’s not adequately funded, they can’t even offer that service to people who are similarly situated,” he said.
Ultimately, Carr said he hoped stakeholders would come to the table to address the shortfalls in funding DA offices with court fines, and that they instead should be funded in full by the state.
“Having in the back of our mind collections, whether we’re short this month, whether we’ll be able to make the payroll for the entire office, whether we’ll have to lay somebody off… those are realities of being in a DA’s office and being a DA,” he said.
“We try to make things right every day, yet we’re underfunded and have to rely on what I call gimmicks to make up that shortfall. DAs don’t enjoy being a collection agency, we’d rather focus on the job that we were elected to do.”
In terms of public safety, the stacking court fines, Nelson said, often led to those in debt to the courts committing additional crimes as a means to satisfy their financial obligations.
“They even told me what they did; they sold drugs, they stole, and then 5% of them wrote in that they did some type of sex work, so again, this is bad news for public safety, it’s bad news for revenue, and it’s bad news from a moral perspective,” she said.
Those with debts to the court often avoided police, she said, for fear of being arrested, and even struggle to find housing, should a warrant have been issued due to unpaid court fees.
Solutions
The research project does not list strategies to improve Jefferson County’s and the state’s court fees and fines system. But Nelson and other project collaborators have some suggestions.
First, all of the project’s collaborators who spoke with ADN suggested that the priority disbursement system be reformed, moving crime victims to be first in line to receive their share of court fees, something that could be done administratively by the Alabama Administrative Office of the Courts.
They also suggested the state establish a centralized system to make court fees easier to pay.
Often, Nelson said, those she spoke with incurred late fees from the court because they were unable to determine which entity they owed money too.
In Jefferson County, residents must bring exact change if paying in cash, can only make payments during the limited hours of operation of the court, and must know their case number, or pay $10 for it to be identified by court staff.
Courts and district attorney offices should also be funded primarily by the state, Nelson suggested, to eliminate the incentive to fill budget gaps with increased fees and fines.
“The big takeaway is you would never design a system that works this way; if you were designing a system from scratch, there is no chance you would say that this is a smart, fair, efficient (and) equitable way to collect revenue,” Nelson said.
Carr concurred with the idea of the state fully funding DA offices, calling it a primary function of government to do so.
“I understand tough decisions have to be made financially in Montgomery, I get that, but fully funding the DA offices I think is critical and that I hope occurs at some point in the future.”
While the research has yet to make its way to lawmakers, judges and those in the judicial system across the state, improving the state’s court fees and fines system has long been a topic of discussion, with Rep. Jim Hill, R-Odenville, a former judge in St. Clair County, telling ADN he is open to suggestions.
“I think oftentimes we add court costs to tickets and (civil and criminal rulings) that really do not go to the court system at all. I don’t think that’s the best (system),” Hill, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said.
“Should we look at it? Perhaps. I’ve heard this discussion around, but I haven’t heard anyone come forward with any kind of thought process on what we need to do. But sure, I’m always open to looking at how we do things and if there’s a better way.”