Fines, Fees, Forfeitures and the Carceral State

John Caramichael, Mary Versa Clemens-Sewall, Kenny Coleman, Nia Gooding, Nashe

Mutenda, Jennifer Peterlin, and Ryan Roegge

Background

I. Introduction

This group investigated the relationship between capital, profits, and policing. This

field of research is particularly salient in discussions about the criminal justice system

after the shooting death of unarmed Michael Brown in 2014. Following the death of

Michael Brown and subsequent protests in Ferguson, the United States Department of

Justice initiated an investigation into the Ferguson Police Report. The ensuing report

was damning of the municipal government in Ferguson. The over 100 page-long report

describes in shocking detail a pattern of racial bias in the enforcement of laws that can

be explained at least in part by the over-criminalization of black residents. The

Department found that black people accounted for 85% of vehicle stops, 90% of

citations, and 93% of arrests despite only comprising 67% of Ferguson’s population. 1

Police had incentives to reach a certain quota of arrests and citations per month.

Further, Ferguson relied on traffic ticket revenue to bolster the city’s budget. The tragic

death of Michael Brown and the ensuing federal investigation brought much needed

attention and accountability to Ferguson’s government.

After the landmark Ferguson investigation report, policy scholars began to ask the

question: Is Ferguson unique? The results of this group’s research corroborated by

other studies finds that Ferguson is not an anomaly when it comes to their predatory

fining practices. Across the United States, many cities and municipalities rely on fines,

fees, and forfeitures to support local government budgets especially following the recent

2008 financial crisis which created fiscal crises for local governments. The financial

crisis, along with a voting population that openly rejects tax increases, caused local

officials to rely on fines and fees as a source of revenue that does not increase the tax

burden on local residents. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, an independent and

bipartisan commission, charged with investigating civil rights abuses across the country

released a comprehensive report entitled “Fines and Fees Against Communities of

Color: Civil Rights & Constitutional Implications.” The report contains many important

insights that guide our research in this project.

1 Department of Justice, Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, 4, March 4, 2015, accessed

August 25, 2018

,https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_poli

ce_department_report.pdf.

1

II. Literature Review

In A Pound of Flesh- Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor, Alexes

Harris discusses the ways in which the American criminal justice system is structured to

depend on criminal monetary sanctions. Through a comprehensive analysis of empirical

research, Harris breaks down which populations receive fines and fees as punishment in

addition to incarceration, how offenders are monitored for payment, and, more broadly,

the integral role monetary sanctions play in the administration of punishment in the

United States today. In her writing, Harris indicates very clearly that “given that race

and class are so highly correlate in U.S. society and that the criminal justice system has

consistently managed people of color in this country in disproportionate and disparate

ways, the system of monetary sanctions has become a key way in which racial and class

inequalities in the United States are reproduced and reinforced.” Indeed, although

monetary sanctions are ostensibly targeting solely low-income individuals, those who

are racially marginalized in the United States are inescapably tied to this contemporary

system of social control. In this vein, Harris describes the imposition of monetary

sanctions as consistent with other historical frameworks of American “justice.” She

draws striking comparisons between the colonization of indigenous peoples, the

enslavement of African people, the Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws, writing that, in the

same way monetary sanctions do, each of these institutional practices forcibly managed

and controlled the lives of poor and/or nonwhite people, isolating them and effectively

keeping them in a subordinate position in society, the better from which they could be

further impoverished and kept under constant surveillance due to a lack of

opportunities for socio-economic mobility. Thus, Harris characterizes the contemporary

criminal justice system, dependent on monetary sanctions, as a “system of social control

that manages, punishes, and marginalizes a subset of the U.S. population because of

their poverty status.”

In Policing the Crisis by Stuart Hall, policing is connected to the seemingly ruling

class vs subject relationship between law enforcement officers and Americans of color.

The monetary sanctions from the Harris reading are an example of the “social control” 2

that the ruling class wields against minority groups. Members of the ruling class are

allowed to perpetuate the ticketing system. The more that a law enforcement officer is

aware of a crime/violation, the more likely they are to search for it. The use of fees as a

source of state revenue incentivizes law enforcement officers to carry out their

responsibilities with a purpose. This will also cause the officers to search for the subjects

2 Hall, Stuart, J. Clarke, C. Critcher, T. Jefferson, and Brian Roberts. "Policing the crisis: Mugging, law

and order and the state." (1978).

2

of the crimes who are most likely to be fined. Also in Golden Gulag, Ruth Wilson

Gilmore deals with the issues surrounding incarceration as a spatial fix for social

problems. Rather than a spatial fix, revenue boosting ticketing produces a racialized

“other” who is blamed and targeted by the media and law enforcement officers. Using 3

fines and forfeiture money, the state is using another aspect of its social control similar

to the prison industrial complex.

III. History of the Rise of Fines and Fees

Initially, in the early and mid-twentieth century, penal codes and sentencing

guidelines criticized the imposition of fines and fees for offenses and instead preferred

incarceration because many believe that incarceration was “rehabilitative by promoting

reflection and remorse.” Further, fines and fees were seen as a poor deterrent as rich 4

people can easily pay fines and poor people cannot afford to pay them.

In the 1980s, the rise of “broken windows” policing was the catalyst that began a

dramatic growth in the amount of fines and fees imposed by government agencies. The

broken windows theory, which essentially ties low-level offenses to large dynamics of

social disorder, encourage the increasing use of fines and fees. To many proponents of 5

the broken windows theory, assessing fines and fees for minor violations “serves to main

the social order” by discouraging violent crimes and “helping maintain the appearance

of a law-abiding community.” By the late 1980s, fines and fees became the preferred 6

sanction for low-level misdemeanors because “incarceration imposes additional costs on

society in the form of prison construction [and] prison guards” whereas fines and fees

do not. Many local jurisdictions increased the monetary sanctions for low level offenses 7

under the guise of “usage costs.” The idea was that jurisdictions would effectively be 8

passing on costs to the offender instead of having to raise taxes on the public, which is

often a politically destructive move in the era of tax revolts.

More recently, in 2003 the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA)

recognized the emerging fiscal crisis due to legislation in many states passed that limits

raising taxes on local communities issued the following guidance: “[i]n a tight budget

environment, increasing fees and fines by rule may be a viable option” and that

“enhanced collection of uncollected fines” and the “suspension of vehicle licenses or

3 Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. Golden gulag: Prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing California.

Vol. 21. Univ of California Press, 2007. 4 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Targeted Fines and Fees Against Communities of Color: Civil Rights

& Constitutional Implications, 8, September 2017, accessed August 25, 2018,

https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/docs/Statutory_Enforcement_Report2017.pdf. 5 Ibid, 7.

6 Ibid, 8.

7 Ibid, 8.

8 Ibid, 9.

3

registrations” would generate revenue and promote compliance with court orders. The 9

2008 recessions further increased pressure for the use of monetary sanctions and judges

were encouraged to aggressively pursue the collections of debts.

With the increased dependence on traffic tickets to fund local governments

incentives were created “for law enforcement to issue as many citations and fines as

possible, regardless of the severity of the offense.” The “productivity” of police officers

became directly tied to the “volume” of tickets they were able to issue. Alarmingly, 10

many states and localities have begun to privatize collection of fines in the form of legal

financial obligations (LFOs) that are incurred through people’s interactions with the

judicial system. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights powerfully concludes: 11

“constitutional conflicts of interest exist when a decision-maker with the power to

arrest, charge, convict, or sentence a defendant would personally benefit as a result of

exercising that power.” 12

IV. Impact of Fines and Fees on Communities of Color and the Poor

Throughout the United States, the largest portion of fines and fees results from

parking infractions, traffic violations, and missed court appearances. A positive finding

is that the median municipality receives less than 1% of its revenue from fines and fees.

Despite this finding, there are many cities that have been found to have a percentage of

their revenue from fines and fees. Dan Kopf in an article entitled “The Fining of Black

America” found that 17 cities actually derived a higher percentage of their revenue from

fines and fees than Ferguson. Below is the chart documenting the top 25 cities with a 13

population of over 5,000 that has the highest amount of fines and fees over revenue:

9 Ibid, 9.

10 Ibid, 13.

11 Alexes Harris, Beth Huebner, and Karin Martin, Monetary Sanctions in the Criminal Justice System, 6,

April 2017, accessed August 25, 2018,

http://www.monetarysanctions.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Monetary-Sanctions-Legal-Review-Fi

nal.pdf. 12

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Targeted Fines, 17. 13

Dan Kopf, "The Fining of Black America," Priceonomics, last modified June 24, 2016, accessed August

25, 2018, https://priceonomics.com/the-fining-of-black-america/.

4

Figure 1. Top 25 cities for fines and fees over revenue. 14

The table above shows that cities with a high percentage of fines and fees over

revenue exists in many regions of the country. It also shows that Ferguson is not an

anomaly ranking #18 on the list. In his research, Kopf states: “One Demographic that

was most characteristic of cities that levy large amount of fines on their citizens: a large

African American population. Among the fifty cities with the highest proportion of

revenues from fines, the median size of African American population – on a percentage

basis – is more than five times greater than the national median.” Going in to the 15

project we thought that fines would be correlated with income levels and that low

income areas would bear the weight of fine and fee schemes. Kopf concludes that “Some

rich cities use punitive fines for revenue, and some poor ones do too… The best indicator

that a government will levy an excessive amount of fines is if its citizens are Black.” 16

Research into the top 100 municipalities with the highest percentage of fines and fees

14 Ibid.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

5

over revenue found that 92% of them had local court systems that partially or fully fund

themselves.

When citizens are unable to pay their legal financial obligations the criminal

justice system can impose severe punishments in addition incarceration. Thus, for

low-income individuals, a routine traffic stop can be the beginning of a long interaction

with the criminal justice system due to an inability to pay a fine. Despite attempting to

generate revenue, predatory fining practices often do not actually generate net revenue

when considering the externalities imposed upon society. Costs that are not often

considered are the cost of incarceration, job loss, and family separation. Across the

United States, failure to pay court fines and fees is the primary reason for driver license

suspensions. Beyond driver license suspensions, people are often imprisoned for

nonpayment of fine and courts fees. Many jurisdictions have allowed people unable to

pay their fines and fees to instead participate in community service. Many activists that

community service is not a perfect alternative to incarceration because a “homeless

person or a person without viable childcare options” find it very difficult to complete

community service hours. 17

V. Conclusion

Overall, a key finding is that fines and fees are routinely imposed throughout the

country. Municipalities looking to resolve fiscal crises often look to increasing the

enforcement and costs of fines and fees. An increasing reliance of traffic tickets for

revenue incentivizes law enforcement to issue more citations. After the issuing of a fee

or fine, unpaid legal financial obligation can lead to additional sanctions including

suspension of driver licenses and imprisonment. Poorer communities of color often

bear the brunt of these predatory practices.

17 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Targeted Fines, 40.

6

Case Studies

In this portion of our project, we wanted to investigate how the fines and fees are

implemented in different spatial configurations. In the end we chose those three cities

as the subject of our case studies: Clarkston, GA, Riverdale Park, MD, and North Hills,

NY. We selected these cities from the list of the top 20 cities for fines and fees over

revenue. Each of these sites are distinct from each other and represent varying income

levels, demographic makeups, and other defining characteristics. By choosing diverse

sites for our case studies, we hope to illuminate how the logics of the carceral state are

apparent across geographical scales. Throughout the case studies, we considered how

the theories discussed in our literature review come into being through practice. Case

studies allow us to ground our theoretical observations in real world examples. We also

more clearly see differences and similarities between municipalities that generate a high

percentage of revenue from fines, fees, and forfeitures.

I. Clarkston, GA

Clarkston is a town of approximately 13,000 located around 20 minutes outside

of downtown Atlanta. We chose Clarkston as a case study because of its unique

relationship between racial makeup and fines as percentage revenue rate. As shown in

Figure 1, originally coming from Dan Kopf’s “The Fining of Black America,” Clarkston

ranks third in the nation for fines as percentage revenue among cities with a population

over 5,000. Along with a high refugee population, Clarkston’s poverty rate is among the

highest in the nation at 37.6%. According to 2016 statistics of Clarkston, the racial 18

breakdown is 58.5% Black, 24.9% Asian, 8.3% white. Over the past thirty years,

Clarkston has become a common landing spot for African refugees in the Southeast.

Clarkston has earned the nickname the “most diverse square mile in America” and “the

Ellis Island of the South.” Clarkston’s median household income was $33,486 in 2016,

more than $20,000 less than the median household income for the entire United States.

Over 50% of the population in Clarkston speaks a language other than English, most

being African refugee speakers. Along with Riverdale Park, over a third of Clarkston

residents do not have U.S. citizenship.

In “Who Pays for Government?” by Michael Sances, revenue derived from tickets

and fees is observed racially. Sances combines fines data with information from the

2010 census to come to the conclusion that cities/towns with a majority black

population are far more likely to have a revenue reliant on tickets and fees. Clarkston’s

18 Ibid. 11.

7

majority black population is also the group most commonly under the poverty line. The 19

entire state of Georgia has a problem with relying on fees as a portion of their annual

budget. Rather than being concerned with public health and safety, law enforcement

officers are becoming more and more compelled to ticket citizens for harmless

infractions like violating the minimum housing standards of the criminal justice system.

It seems as though law enforcement officers target the black community as a whole, and

refugee populations in particular in Clarkston. Surcharges are a killer for Georgians who

receive a ticket or fee. Sometimes the original ticket/fee is warranted, but in almost

every case the surcharges are just additional revenue for the state. Georgia municipal

courts can add “about 40 to 45 percent to the cost of a simple traffic ticket.” The black

residents of Clarkston are being forced to pay huge surcharges that are supposed to be

funding programs for Clarkston citizens. However, citizens are forced to pay these

mysterious surcharges that end up padding and balancing the state budget. These

surcharges were installed in the 1990’s, and have been contested by the public since day

one.

The inability to pay a fine initially drags out the process much longer than it

should be, leading to multiple court dates and additional fees. For example black

teenager Kevin Thompson was “jailed in December of 2014 for five days because he

could not afford to pay court-ordered fines” in Clarkston, Georgia. The Georgia Super 20

Speeder Law enacted in 2010 also increased the revenue Clarkston has received through

fines and fees. For speeding on a 75 mph or 85 mph road, there is a $200 fine to be paid

within 120 days, if not your license is suspended by the DDS. Because Clarkston is full 21

of refugees from the Middle East, you would think that these foreigners are targeted by

law enforcem ent, making their ignorance a source of revenue for Georgia’s state 22

budget.

II. Riverdale Park, MD

Riverdale Park is a town in Maryland with a population of just over 7000. The

racial makeup of Riverdale Park is 56% Hispanic, 24% Black, and 16.9% White. 33.5% of

the people in Riverdale Park, MD speak a non-English language, and 66.3% are U.S.

citizens. The median income is $54,340 and 13.5% of the population lives in poverty.

%15.7 of the town revenue is generated from fees and fines which puts Riverdale Park at

19 Sances, Michael W., and Hye Young You. "Who pays for government? Descriptive representation and

exploitative revenue sources." The Journal of Politics 79, no. 3 (2017): 1090-1094. 20

Jones, Elizabeth. "Racism, fines and fees and the US carceral state." Race & Class 59, no. 3 (2018):

38-50. 21

Heaghney, Ken. "Georgia’s Revenue Outlook." presentation to Joint House and Senate Appropriations

Committee (2010). 22

"Riverdale Park, MD." Data USA. Accessed August 27, 2018.

https://datausa.io/profile/geo/riverdale-park-md/.

8

#12 on the list of cities in America with the highest percentages of total town revenue

generated from fees and fines.22

In Maryland the two most revenue-generating monetary sanctions are toll

violations and civil forfeitures. According to a report done by The Washington Post, the

year 2017 saw a 50 percent increase of toll administrative revenue (includes fines) from

the year before—from $40.7 million to $61.3 million. The Maryland Transportation

Agency attributes this significant increase in generated revenue to “enforcement

actions.” The ambiguity in the what the MdTA describes as increased “enforcement

actions” is telling of the sort of dubious methods (e.g. racial profiling) that enforcement

officers use to place monetary sanctions. Given the national trends of enforcement

practices, a town like Riverdale Park where a third of the population are non-citizens

and 85% are minorities would most certainly face confusing and inconsistent policing

practices. For example, the same report found that, “Black residents were twice as likely

to be searched and twice as likely to be arrested as white residents—despite the fact that,

in the event of a search, whites proved to be two-thirds more likely to be caught with

some sort of contraband.”

On top of the unpredictable nature of enforcement practices, poorer Maryland

residents face significant accruing fees if they are unable to pay their toll violations. Toll

violators have up to 45 days to pay their fees before they receive a $50 civil penalty.

Holly Mirabella, policy associate at Cash Campaign says, “It is particularly damaging for

low- to moderate-income drivers… Folks are trapped in this cycle of debt. They are

taking out a loan to pay this debt with an even higher interest rate.” Numerous residents

talked of how they had to go bankrupt because of their enormous toll debts. One such

resident described how $200 worth of tolls became $3000. The distinction Mirabella

makes in terms of people of differing income-levels is important as this demonstrates

how fees and fines have various levels of impact—and for some the impact is more

significant. 23

Now under Maryland’s civil forfeiture laws people can permanently lose cash and

property without having being convicted or even charged of a crime. Once their property

has been taken by the state, they have to apply to get it back and these applications are

only reviewed 3 months after they are sent in. Jennifer Egan, an assistant public

defender says, “They make it incredibly difficult to get your property back. Most people

try for months and end up giving up. It seems to be intentionally difficult. The ripple

23 "Maryland Rakes in Millions of Dollars from Toll Fines and Penalties." The Washington Post. April 28, 2018. Accessed August 27, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/maryland-rakes-in-millions-of-dollars-from-toll-fines-and-penalties/2018/04/28/f19b9c40-4408-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html?utm_term=.573ebf778121.

9

effects are substantial for people living in poverty. It is not a little deal. If we understand

that lots of crime is economically motivated, taking money and assets from people

doesn’t do much to disincentivize that.” Maryland is a participant in the “equitable

sharing program” a federal forfeiture program where local/state agencies collaborate

with federal agencies to ensure that when property is seized, local/state agencies can

reap up to 80% of the proceeds. According to the Institute of Justice, “The

equitable-sharing loophole has generated millions for Maryland law enforcement, at the

cost of Marylanders’ rights. Between 2000 and 2013, police and prosecutors received

more than $80 million from the U.S. Department of Justice.” Though Maryland state

officials suggest that these funds are actually going to community development

programs, only $142,000 of these federal funds — less than 1 percent of the funds

actually went to community programs like drug treatment programs. 24

III. North Hills, NY

North Hills, New York is located along the North shore of Long Island in Nassau

County. It is one of the richest municipalities in New York with a median income of

$133,000 and about 79% of the population is white. This city is definitely unlike 25

Ferguson, MO which has a poor and majority black population, but similar

characteristics define the municipalities fee collection practices. North Hills, NY is

ranked #2 in the country for fines fines and fees as a percentage of revenue.

It is important to consider the systems and structures that have allowed North

Hills to become notorious for its ruthless fines and fees regime. In April 2017, Alexes

Harris (the author of a Pound of Flesh which is cited in this report) and other prominent

criminal justice scholars produced a report called “Monetary Sanctions in the Criminal

Justice System.”This report examines the law and policy of several states as it relates to

the imposition of legal financial obligations (LFOs). LFOs are the fines, fees, costs, and

restitution imposed by a court on top of a criminal sentence. Poor people cannot pay

these LFOs they incur through interactions with the criminal justice system.

In New York the maximum LFO for a Traffic Misdemeanor and Traffic Infraction

is $2500 and $2000, respectively. For any conviction in court, there is a mandatory 26

surcharge for any conviction. The State of NY has allowed courts to “collect unpaid

mandatory surcharges from the commissary accounts of incarcerated individuals.” For 27

24 Sibilla, Nick. "Maryland Property Owners No Longer Have To Prove Their Innocence In Civil Forfeiture Cases." Forbes. February 08, 2016. Accessed August 27, 2018. 25

Kopf, "The Fining," Priceonomics. 26

Harris, Huebner, and Martin, Monetary Sanctions, 144. 27

Ibid, 145.

10

example, the common offense of driving without a license in New York warrants a $750

penalty in addition to any “fees or surcharges.”

Since the early 1990s, New York has increased the severity and the number of

people subjected to mandatory monetary sanctions. As evidenced by the increasing cost

of probation fees, there has been a switch to a model where the “criminal” is responsible

for paying for the criminal justice system. Imprisonment and suspension of one’s driver

license are common punishments for people that are unable to pay their LFOs. In 1995,

the NY Legislature passed the Sentencing Reform Act of 1995 which prevented courts

and judge from waiving LFOs for people that could not afford them. 28

North Hills, NY has followed the trend of increasing the commonality and

severity of monetary sanctions to support their budget. North Hills which is the site of

many new developments including a new Ritz Carlton. North Hills is located just 20

miles away from Manhattan so many residents of this suburb choose to commute into

the city. The other big group of residents in North Hills are retirees. 29

North Hills has been able to attract a high number of luxury developers because it

has a relatively low property tax rate compared to other areas in and around New York.

Ed Mangano, a former Nassau County Executive (where North Hills is situated), has

openly admitted that recent increases in the cost of fines are meant to cut down on a

budget deficit. This budget deficit resulted from the local legislature’s refusal to raise 30

income and property taxes.

In 2016, Mangano approved a new “Driver Responsibility” surcharge which will

be tacked onto any fines for traffic violations. He says that the money will go towards

hiring more than 150 new police officers and to create an anti-terrorism squad for the

county. Many local residents have identified that this is a guise to secure increased 31

budget revenues from fines. The North Shore of Long Island, New York is a very rich

area with virtually no threats of terrorism.

The excessive traffic fines and policing is combined with strict zoning and

residential codes. This regime maintains North Hills as a majority white suburb. One of

the largest industries in this suburban area are traffic lawyers who charge high fees and

28 Ibid, 152.

29 Marcelle S. Fischler, "Five ZIP Codes and No Downtown," New York Times (New York, NY), September

17, 2006, Real Estate, accessed August 25, 2018,

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/realestate/17livi.html??mtrref=undefined. 30

Paul LaRocco, "Edward Mangano Proposes $105 Traffic Ticket Fee in Nassau," Newsday (Long Island,

NY), September 19, 2016, accessed August 25, 2018,

https://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/edward-mangano-proposes-105-traffic-ticket-fee-in-nass

au-1.12339722. 31

Ibid.

11

say that clients will not have to appear in court. While the uber-rich can pay to contest

their tickets, poorer populations cannot and must take off valuable work time to go into

court for small offenses. Residents as well as workers who travel through Nassau county

to work in the service industry along Long Island are targets of this revenue scheme.

Many North Hills residents accept the high rate of fines and violations as the only

viable way to keep their communities safe. For politicians in North Hills, raising fines

and fees and increasing enforcement is a strategic political tactic which allows them to

avoid raising taxes to address the budget deficit. Although a minority of residents 32

protest recent fine and fee hikes, the vast majority of white residents are content with

the local government as long as their taxes are not increased.

32 The Editorial Board, "Trouble for Counties When Taxes Masquerade as Fees," Newsday (Long Island,

NY), February 6, 2018, accessed August 25, 2018,

https://www.newsday.com/opinion/editorial/nassau-county-fees-and-fines-1.16586584.

12

Data Analysis

In addition to studying specific case studies, we performed a statistical analysis

on all municipalities in the U.S. to search for characteristics that are correlated to

greater reliance on fines and forfeitures as a municipal revenue source. Based on the

review of the scholarly literature and the takeaways from case studies, we identified

several numerical variables that might be correlated to the proportion of municipal

revenue derived from fines and forfeitures. These included demographic data, which can

indicate what fraction of the population is likely to be in a racialized group. Since the

literature suggest that fines are a form of racial taxation, we hypothesized a

disproportionately high collection of fines and forfeitures in municipalities with higher

proportions of the population categorized as Black and/or another racialized group. We

also looked at socioeconomic factors, including median income, education level, and

poverty rate. Finally, we took into account the degree of reliance on other sources of

municipal revenue, including property and income taxes, as well as categories of

expenditure related to incarceration, including police and judicial costs. The goal of this

analysis was to contextualize our case studies in a nationwide investigation into the

attributes of municipalities with high ratios of fines and forfeitures to total revenue.

The data was compiled from several sources. First, we used the 2012 American

Community Survey, which collects economic, social, demographic and housing data on

“places” — a Census-designated geographic area that denotes cities, towns and

municipalities as well as organic, unincorporated populations. We then combined this

data with the Census Bureau’s database on the finances of independent governments

within the U.S. (states, counties and municipalities), which provided breakdowns of

independent governments’ revenue and expenditures. This data was used for a

multivariable linear regression of our compiled independent variables against the ratio

of fines and forfeitures to total revenue. The results of this analysis are summarized in

Table 1.

For the regression run in Table 2, we also used the LEMAS police survey, which

assembles data on about 3,000 police departments, including department

demographics, salaries, training and weapons policies. In Table 2, the regression

controlled for all variables on which we regressed in Table 1.

13

14

The dependent variable for the statistical analysis is the fraction of municipal

revenue that comes from fines and forfeitures. The first linear regression expresses the

correlation between the dependent variable and a variety of demographic and

socioeconomic data about each municipality. Additional independent variables include

the fraction of municipal revenue from other selected sources, as well as the fraction of

municipal expenditures on police forces and judicial institutions. The coefficients

resulting from this regression are given in the first column of Table 1. The second linear

regression uses the same independent variables, but its dependent variable is the

percentile rank of the fraction of municipal revenue coming from fines and forfeitures.

The percentile rank is a number between 0 and 1 that captures how a municipality’s

fraction of revenue from fines and forfeitures compares to this fraction in all other

municipalities. For example, a municipality with the median value for this fraction has a

percentile rank of 0.5. An above-median rank is between 0.5 and 1, while a

below-median rank is between 0 and 0.5.

With a sample size exceeding 19,000 observations, the linear regressions

obtained statistically significant correlations for many of the independent variables, but

the magnitudes of these correlation coefficients varied. The coefficients in the first

regression were low (on the order of 0.01 or lower) because the absolute ratio of fines

and forfeitures to total municipal revenue is quite low. The median for this fraction

across all municipalities is approximately 0.00223, or 0.223%. Therefore, the percentile

rank supplements the analysis by placing these small ratios in the context of all

municipalities. For instance, a 10-percentage point increase in the proportion of a

municipality’s population that is Black corresponds to a 0.37 percentage point increase

in the proportion of the municipal revenue which comes from fines and forfeitures. Put

another way, a 10-percentage point increase in the proportion of a municipality’s

15

population that is Black corresponds to a 3-percentage point increase in the percentile

rank of the proportion of the municipal revenue which comes from fines and forfeitures.

Most of the discussion focuses on the coefficients from the regression that used

the absolute ratio of fines and forfeitures to total revenue (abbreviated as “absolute

ratio”), while the regression with percentile rank for this ratio (abbreviated as

“percentile rank”) is used as an aide for contextualization. Within the demographic and

socioeconomic data, the absolute ratio was strongly correlated to the Black proportion of

the population, as well as the foreign-born proportion. Among the revenue data, high

absolute ratios are associated with lower proportions of municipal revenue coming from

property taxes and select sales taxes. Lastly, the absolute ratio has a positive

relationship with expenditures on both the police and the judicial system, although the

relationship with judicial spending has a higher coefficient.

The data suggest that higher absolute ratios are found in municipalities with

higher proportions of Black, Hispanic, and foreign-born people. Of these three, the

absolute ratio’s relationship to the Black population is strongest, followed by the

foreign-born population, and then the Hispanic population. The coefficients of these

three variables, as regressed against the absolute ratio, are 0.037, 0.018, and 0.006,

respectively. The first two have p-values below 0.01, while the third has a p-value below

0.1. For context, a 10-percentage point increase in the Black proportion of the

population is associated with a 3-percentage point increase in percentile rank, while a

10-percentage point increase in the foreign-born proportion is associated with a

4-percentage point increase in percentile rank. These observations seem to support the

literature that asserts that the collection of fines and forfeitures is a mechanism of racial

taxation. Among these three labels—Black, Hispanic, and foreign-born—Black people

are most consistently racialized as non-white. Some Hispanic and foreign-born people

are also racialized as non-white, and some are perceived as white. Thus, the findings

appear to support the hypothesis that revenue from fines and forfeitures forms a higher

proportion of revenue in municipalities where larger segments of the population are

racialized.

Correlation coefficients for regression the remaining variables suggest that

municipalities with higher absolute ratios receive less of their revenue from income,

property, and sales tax, and they devote a larger proportion of their budgets to funding

the police force and judicial system. The strongest of these relationships are the negative

relationship between absolute ratio and sales taxes and the positive relationship

between absolute ratio and judicial expenses. These two correlations have coefficients of

-0.010 and 0.017, respectively. Both coefficients have p-values below 0.01. Observe that

although the coefficient of sales tax in the second regression has a positive sign, the

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standard error for this coefficient exceeds the value of the coefficient, so we disregard

this number, except to note that the association between absolute ratio and sales tax

may be questionable. These results do not offer a clear explanation for the sources of

revenue that compensate for lower fines and forfeitures collection, but the data do

suggest that municipalities with less tax revenue rely more on fines and forfeitures to

balance the budget. However, the regression does indicate an association between

collecting more money in fines and forfeitures and spending more on the judicial

system. Perhaps, judicial expenditures build an infrastructure for imposing and

collecting fines, and in turn, increased revenue from those fines helps to reinforce this

infrastructure.

GIS Map Visualization

The subject of our case studies, Clarkston, GA, Riverdale Park, MD, and North

Hills, NY are all very close in proximity to three major cities: New York City,

Washington and Atlanta. We thought that the cities would show more of a complete

analysis of our investigation, since we were able to collect data from thousands of

municipalities. The first section of these maps show a gradient of fines and forfeitures

over revenue in each of the three cities. We were able to properly categorize these

proportions by running our FOR data (that is, the absolute ratio of fines and forfeitures

to total municipal revenue) through a logarithmic transformation in QGIS and

separating the numbers into equal interval quantiles. It’s important to note that

Clarkston, GA, Riverdale Park, MD, and North Hills, NY all fall under the the highest

FOR category.

Our second realm of visualization involves a comparison of the municipalities

with the highest FORs to the percentage of black populations in each of the greater

urban areas. Each of the areas that are highlighted red in the first three maps now are

distinguished by red lines. Our final visualization compared the same high FOR

municipalities with foreign-born populations. We used the same tactics from our second

comparison to set-up the visualization and categorize the percentage of populations into

equal quantiles that serve as an accurate reflection of the demographics in respect to the

U.S. population.

This form of visualization confirms the trend that higher absolute ratios are

found in municipalities with higher proportions of Black or foreign-born people. This is

especially true when considering the relationship of FORs and black populations. The

FOR and foreign-born comparison does not seem as strong upon first glance, but if the

maps are looked at all together one would discover that the areas with a high FOR and

lower foreign born population most likely have a high black population. If we had

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created maps for other cities with higher hispanic populations, we can conjecture that

these maps would have shown similar results. The cities of our case studies did not

correlate as well with hispanic populations, which is why we chose to visualize only

black and foreign born population comparisons.

Part 1: Fines and Forfeitures over Revenue

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Part 2: Highest FOR considering Black Population

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Part 3: Highest FOR considering Population of Foreign Born

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