Alexes Harris, Associate Professor of Sociology
Recent media attention on the justice practices of imposing fiscal penalties highlights the need for a multi-state study of the system of monetary sanctions. The aim of this 5-year project is to better understand how the system of monetary sanctions operates across the United States and to provide empirical evidence of the ways in which fiscal penalties sentenced in municipal, felony and Federal systems of justice affect people unable to make payments. As the principal investigator I am working with a post-doctoral student based at the University of Washington to coordinate seven collaborators in other states across the United States. Within each setting we will:
- Review their state’s legal history regarding monetary sanction-related statutes (paying particular attention to the parameters of, the types and amounts of allowable fiscal sentences and related sanctions for non-payment)
- Access automated criminal justice data that would allow for the analysis of fiscal penalties imposed at the Federal, felony, misdemeanor and juvenile court levels (these data will be pooled across the seven states for a comparison)
- Identify three counties and three cities within each state for the focus of qualitative data collection. Within each of the six court jurisdictions the researchers will:
- Conduct ethnographic observations of sentencing and sanctioning hearings regarding monetary sanctions
- Conduct open-ended interviews with court actors (judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, clerks and probation officers) and people who owe legal financial obligations (sample of those owing federal, felony and misdemeanor penalties)
- Collect closed-end surveys from respondents who have been sentenced to fiscal penalties as well (for comparison of subjects across jurisdictions)
The project goal is to encourage a national dialogue around the sentencing of monetary sanctions and the generation of a data set that will allow for within state and national study of the system of monetary sanctions. The triangulation of data (observations, interview, survey, and automated court records) will allow the research team to describe this national phenomenon by detailing the amounts of outstanding debt and identify the numbers and characteristics of debtors. This study will also provide a broader understanding of the different ways states and local actors choose to implement the law and decide to monitor and sanction debtors. And, the study will provide evidence from across the United States of how this sentencing practice affects those who receive such sentences.
The collaborators are: Beth Heubner (University of Missouri, St. Louis), Karin Martin (John Jay), Mary Pattillo (North Western), Becky Pettit (University of Texas, Austin), Bryan Sykes (University of California, Irvine), Sarah Shannon (University of Georgia) and Chris Uggen (University of Minnesota). Funded by The Arnold Foundation
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