RESUMO
Monetary sanctions include fines, fees, restitution, surcharges, interest, and other costs imposed on people who are convicted of crimes ranging from traffic violations to violent felonies. We analyze how people in the court system theorize about monetary sanctions with regards to four kinds of justice: constitutional, retributive, procedural, and distributive justice. Drawing on qualitative interviews with sixty-eight people sentenced to pay monetary sanctions in Illinois, we identify five themes that illuminate how respondents think about these forms of justice: monetary sanctions are: (1) justifiable punishment, (2) impossible to pay due to poverty, (3) double punishment, (4) extortion, and (5) collected by an opaque and greedy state. We find that for defendants in the criminal justice system, monetary sanctions serve some retributive aims, but do not align with the other three domains of justice. We discuss the policy implications of these findings.
RESUMO
Monetary sanctions mandated in state statutes include fines, fees, restitution, and other legal costs imposed on persons convicted of crimes and other legal violations. Drawing on content analysis of current legislative statutes in Illinois pertaining to monetary sanctions, we ask three questions: What are defendants expected to pay for and why? What accommodations exist for defendants' poverty? What are the consequences for nonpayment? We find that neoliberal logics of personal responsibility and carceral expansion suffuse these laws, establishing a basis for transferring public costs onto criminal defendants, offering little relief for poverty, and supporting severe additional penalties for unpaid debt. Statutory inequality legally authorizes further impoverishment of the poor, thereby increasing inequality. Major related organizing and advocacy work, however, has created an opening for significant changes toward greater fairness.
