Good news! California is reducing carceral debt
When any of us are charged with a crime, we could be faced with a flood of financial charges – even if we are ultimately acquitted.
There are charges for processing arrests, for “rent” while in jail, and a potential fee up to $90 a hour for the use of a public defender. Later, there may be more charges for administering probation, and for maintaining home detention programs.
Our system criminalizes people for not having cash on hand. Predictably, private companies profit from this unjust arrangement – charging incarcerated people and their families for phone calls, email, commissary, bail, probation, and more.
In a survey of released state prisoners, the average debt incurred for court-related fines and fees was $13,607. The high cost of maintaining contact with incarcerated family members led more than one in three families (34%) into debt to pay for phone calls and visits alone.
San Francisco became the first city to eliminate local criminal justice fees; this lifted $32 million in debt off of 21,000 residents in 2018 alone.
This law was expanded into the statewide Families Over Fees Act (California Assembly Bill 1869, effective 7/1/2021 ).
The new law cancels many of the “high pain, low gain” fees — which often pile debt onto people who cannot pay it, and may create barriers to their successful reentry.
Over time, this will relieve Californians of over $16 billion in outstanding criminal fee debt, the vast majority of which is uncollectible. It has been common to spend more to collect these fees than they bring in.
Politicians have liked these “user fees,” however, because they postponed the need to raise taxes. In California, the taxpayers have resisted building new prisons and hiring new judges for 40 years. As a result, sometimes there is literally no place to house dangerous criminals, and absolutely no chance for a speedy trial.
California has a budget surplus right now, so the new legislation includes $65 million for counties to offset at least some of their lost fees. That is a good step, but new taxes will be needed so that criminal justice is funded out of general revenues.
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