Background - Fines and fees are frequently used tools in the criminal justice system. A national sample from 2004 found that two-thirds of people in state prisons were subjected to

The use of fines and fees is motivated by a desire to shift criminal justice system costs from taxpayers to defendants and to foster accountability among individuals. [...] By randomizing the participants who had their debt paid off, the researchers could more accurately test the causal effect of fines and fees on people’s level of criminal justice system involvement. [...] Findings "Relief of fines and fees The researchers found that people who significantly reduced new court saw their debt cleared were no more or action in the form of new less likely to be charged for a new crime, warrants, new debt, tax convicted of that crime, or booked into jail intercepts, and private debt compared to those who received no debt collection." relief. [...] Implications "Court fees thus create a pure The results suggest that fines and criminalization of poverty, in which a fees have no effect on the likelihood misdemeanor conviction by itself, and of criminal activity, though they do not crime, creates ongoing appear to keep people more involved involvement in the criminal justice in the criminal justice system through system." new debt and new warra. [...] Taken together, these findings suggest that a reduced use of fines and fees is unlikely to have a substantial impact on crime, nor is it likely to have a pronounced influence on the budgets of the governments that impose them.