A five-year, eight-state study of monetary sanctions — the fines and fees people are sentenced to for everything from a traffic citation to court costs following a felony conviction — reveals the devastating consequences for the people involved, within a system that perpetuates racial and social injustice.
The study, led by Alexes Harris, professor of sociology at the University of Washington, involved a team of student and faculty researchers from around the country, including Karin Martin, assistant professor of public policy at the UW Evans School. The work was published online in January as a double volume of related articles in The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.
The project, Harris said, taught the research team and potentially, decision-makers and the general public, a lot about monetary sanctions. Legal fines and fees, or LFOs, have vast ramifications for people’s lives, from their ability to attain and build wealth, to their employment and housing stability, their health and wellness, even their ability to participate in public life through driving and voting. These prohibitions and limitations, then, can impact people’s families, and even entire neighborhoods.
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