Thread from my panel discussion at #BudgetMattersWA this morning: criminal legal system fines and fees are a hidden, regressive & predatory way to fund public services. Fines & fees are often left out of equitable revenue conversations, but we need to include them 1/

Because the racist structures of our criminal legal (or punishment as Nikkita Oliver says) system make fines and fees work as a racialized form of taxation (Raul Carrillo talks about this framework). And also, changing the way fines & fees are implemented would significantly 2/

alleviate the cost burdens that Washingtonians with lower incomes end up paying for government services that we all use (this is on top of the 18% of income that the lowest quintile income earners pay already in state and local taxes). 3/

Fines and fees are costs levied on people who "use" the legal system and come in many different forms (thinking public defendant, collections, probation, incarceration, etc.). If one is unable to pay assessed fines and fees, they get trapped in debt owed, which has harmful, 4/

Long-term impacts on family and friend relationships, housing and employment opportunities, credit scores, etc. People become ensnared in a government system of surveillance (Michele Cadigan and Gabriela Kirk). 5/

Fines & fees hold different purposes for jurisdictions and governments, which bring different experiences for people interacting with the legal system. Fines & fees act as a "hidden cost" apparatus (Chloe Thurston), where processing cases and going to court require time and 6/

Money. This adds pressure to and affects potential wage earnings and the need to find and pay for childcare for working folks. When debt from fines and fees is created, there is additional pressure to pay bills and stay ahead, putting people in the impossible position of 7/

Choosing which bills to pay (Alexes Harris). In WA, specifically, due to the ways our statutes are written, where minimum fines are the requirement, there is large amounts of discretion that judges & county clerks (counties) can take when assessing fines & fees. 8/

Which means that someone in one county could receive a $600 fine for the same conviction as someone in a different county, that has greater reliance on fines & fees as revenue, where they could receive a $1000 fine. This is clearly an inequitable system. 9/

*Importantly* Black & Latinx folks are overrepresented as defendants and Latinx & Native folks receive *higher* fines and fees than white folks receiving the same conviction (Alexes Harris et al.). Our racist criminal punishment system then works to extract more money and 10/

resources from Black, Latinx, and Native communities in this racially targeted way (continuing the exploitative structures of colonization, imperialism, and capitalism). With the ways that COVID-19 and the spurred economic recession are already impacting communities of color 11/

we must demand that legislators and governments in WA do not take the same route they took during the Great Recession, of increased reliance on fines and fees to generate revenue. If we are to make equitable budget choices, we must refrain from taking more $$ away from folks 12/

with lower incomes and communities of color in WA by NOT relying on fines & fees revenue as we recover. I also asked a couple of questions that I think we need to seriously grapple with, especially in light of the state-sanctioned violence that joins increased police enforcement:

What does a just system look like regarding fines & fees? Well, 1) we need to listen and act on Black and Indigenous community demands. 2) We need to change the way we think about government and legal services -- 14/

what if we shifted the costs of legal services to our larger tax base, so that fines & fees do not over-burden those with lower incomes and create debt? And if we had more equitable and progressive revenue raising strategies, could we apply some of that new revenue to 15/

alleviate court and legal costs for the indigent and those with lower incomes? To go back to enforcement, increased enforcement (more ppl interacting with police) decreases public safety for people of color. We must improve public safety and ensure that this racialized 16/

tax structure of fines & fees does not continue to drain our neighbors of color of money, lives, and resources. We need that change ASAP, and it does belong in this conversation of progressive revenue. And thinking about when folks who can't pay fines & fees or attend court 17/

are incarcerated, we must address the debt, trauma, and other profoundly harmful impacts on well-being and health that occur. We shouldn't be making those with lower incomes lives more expensive and more dangerous with this unjust apparatus of fines & fees. 18/

One path to reducing stress and economic burdens of fines and fees is to end debt-based driver's license suspensions -- thousands of people's licenses are suspended for failure to pay each yr & @budget_policy will have a blog post speaking to this coming out soon! 19/

Thanks for reading this thread, I could go on. But I want to provide the work of the people's research I've used to make these claims.
Raul Carrillo - Reflections: Challenging Monetary Sanctions in the Era of Racial Taxation 20/

Chloe Thurston-Hidden Fees? The Hidden State Framework and the Reform Prospects for Systems of Monetary Sanctions
Michele Cadigan & Gabriela Kirk-On Thin Ice: Bureaucracy Processes of Monetary Sanctions and Job Insecurity
Alexes Harris-A Pound of Flesh 21/

Alexes Harris et al should read & Tyler Smith-Multi-State Study of Monetary Sanctions
Karin Martin-Monetary Myopia (and conversation!)
Brittany Friedman-Carceral Immobility and Financial Capture (will be talking more about this!) 22/

@ACLU_WA report "Driven to Fail"
Free to Drive Campaign
and Frank Edwards-Fiscal Pressures, The Great Recession, and Monetary Sanctions in Washington Courts of Limited Jurisdiction.

Be on the lookout for the blog posts and more from me. thanks for sticking through