Alabama courts keep money from fines that should go to victims

Alabama’s reliance on the money generated by court fines and fees distorts the criminal justice system’s goals and causes government revenue to be prioritized over victim compensation. A recent report from the Jefferson County Equitable Fines and Fees Project highlights the flaws in the sanctions the state’s courts impose and how the resulting revenue is allocated.

When a person is found guilty of a traffic violation, misdemeanor, or felony in Alabama, courts often impose monetary sanctions or “legal financial obligations” in the form of fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution. There are important distinctions between different types of legal financial obligations:

• Fines are imposed upon convictions and are primarily intended to deter and punish crime. They are usually set in statute and vary depending on the offense for which an individual is convicted. Fines are appropriate and beneficial when used as an intermediate form of punishment instead of incarceration. However, fines are commonly used in addition to incarceration.
• Fees and surcharges are used to generate revenue. They shift the costs of the justice system and other public services away from taxpayers and onto defendants.
• Restitution holds offenders directly responsible for financially compensating the person they harmed.

Legal financial obligations, particularly restitution, are an appropriate and proportionate response in many cases. However, legal financial obligations in Alabama are not sufficiently scaled or targeted in their application. Courts often do not consider an individual’s ability to pay legal financial obligations because fines are proscribed in statute, and court costs may only be waived for a defendant serving an active jail sentence. As a result, the financial impact of a conviction varies wildly depending on a person’s income. Legal financial obligations often go uncollected, causing public services funded by court revenues to suffer and leaving victims without the restitution they are owed.

Many Alabamans ordered by the courts to pay fines, fees, and restitution do not pay any amount of the debt, often because they cannot afford to pay. According to the Jefferson County Equitable Fines and Fees Project report, approximately 65% of people with legal financial obligations imposed upon them by the courts did not pay off their balances between 2014 and 2019.

Payment rates were the lowest among those classified as indigent, those who could not afford a private attorney. Slightly under 60% of those classified as indigent paid $0 of assessed fines, fees, and restitution. About 30% of people not considered indigent also paid nothing. Nearly 50% of non-indigent people paid their full court debt compared to less than 20% of those classified as indigent. A sizable share of individuals made partial payments regardless of indigency status.

Low collection rates present a major problem when the government relies on this revenue to fund public services, as Alabama does. The Jefferson County Equitable Fines and Fees Project report explains that Alabama’s Administrative Office of Courts allocates this revenue to various state entities based on an established priority system. By default, district attorneys and clerks of courts’ offices are the first in line to receive money. Restitution payments to victims are at the bottom of the priority list.

Restitution is supposed to recompensate crime victims and impose a proportionate sanction on an offender. However, Alabama’s current system is geared more towards funding state government. This backward prioritization system is exactly what we should expect when governments rely on court fines, fees, and surcharges to fund public services.

Courts and prosecutors fulfill core government functions that should be funded through the state general fund, not fines and fees. This reform would guard against the perverse incentive to use the criminal justice system to convict defendants to make money, not to protect the community. Importantly, this reform will also lead to more victims receiving the restitution they are owed. It will also guarantee that the justice system is reliably funded through a deliberative process rather than relying on variable revenue from legal financial obligations.

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