Report examines Florida's criminal justice fees

by Gabrielle Davis
A recently released Florida Bar Foundation-funded study examines Florida’s practice of levying fees from indigent ex-offenders despite their inability to pay, at times putting them behind the bars of what the study calls a “debtors’ prison.”

Through its Improvements in the Administration of Justice Grant Program, the Foundation provided $175,000 to fund the report by the Brennan Center for Justice, a New York-based non-partisan public policy and law institute at the New York University School of Law.

“Better understanding of how higher fees in the criminal justice system affect the indigent allows stakeholders to consider the ultimate costs to society of their continued incarceration,” said Maria Henderson, Foundation first vice president and former chair of the administration of justice committee.

“It fits well with the mission of the Foundation that the justice system works best when it works for all of us, not just those with the ability to pay.”

The report, “The Hidden Costs of Florida’s Criminal Justice Fees,” released in March, found that since 1996 the state has added 20 new legal financial obligations and user fees for criminal defendants to pay.

Meanwhile, exemptions for unemployed, low-income and disabled ex-offenders are virtually non-existent. As punishment for failing to pay, defendants incur new fees and their driver’s licenses are revoked, further complicating their prospects for employment, the study shows. Upon re-arrest for nonpayment, ex-offenders incur additional fees, throwing them into a cycle of debt.

Monthly payments on user fees and court costs can be stifling for ex-offenders, said Second Judicial Circuit Court Public Defender Nancy Daniels.

Daniels told the story of an unemployed client who just completed a court-run drug program and has to pay $75 a month for court costs and a $50 monthly fee for probation costs.

“It almost ensures they’re going to cycle in and out of jail,” Daniels said. “There has to be a process of determining who has the ability to pay and what amount is reasonable. It’s not a sensible thing to create a penalty against someone who is not going to be able to fulfill it.”

Rebekah Diller, deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Justice Program and author of the report, said restitution is supposed to compensate the victim or society for crimes, unlike the user fees.

“These are a way to raise revenue for the state. They’re not a part of the criminal code intended to punish you,” Diller said.

Diller said it will be important to examine the cost-effectiveness of the fees and to determine the impact on the local governments charged with collecting them. Collections operations and re-arrests do result in significant costs for counties.

“We need to look at both sides of the ledger, at what goes in and what goes out as far as collection costs.”

Among its recommendations, the 42-page study proposes that:

• Payment plans be tailored to the defendant’s ability to pay.
• Debt-related arrests for non-payment of fees or failing to appear in court be eliminated.
• Courts offer community service programs, as an alternative to payment, that build job skills for those unable to pay.
• Court clerks only suspend the driver’s licenses of those who have the ability to pay but refuse to do so.

“Certainly it’s time to look at longer-term solutions and realize that when you add $50 and $75, you might not think it has a big impact, but there’s a cumulative impact on funding the criminal justice system this way,” Diller said.