Perception and Payment of Economic Sanctions: A Survey of Offenders*

Summary

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Spelman also found that the perceived difficulty of paying economic sanctions depended on the type of offender and the amount of the sanction, such that property offenders viewed large fines as very severe, whereas drug and violent offenders did not. In fact, open-ended responses to a question about whether paying economic sanctions interferes with offenders being able to complete probation or parole successfully indicated that our respondents did fear repercussions for nonpayment.

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Extract

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Perception and Payment of Economic Sanctions: A Survey of Offenders*

ECONOMIC SANCTIONS HAVE been criticized because they are perceived to be unfair to poor defendants, to have no effect on wealthy defendants, and to be unenforceable because offenders cannot be imprisoned for nonpayment of debt (Ruback & Bergstrom, 2006). Nevertheless, for three reasons their use is likely to increase. First, because the costs of criminal justice operations are high, offenders are now expected to pay at least part of those costs. second, concern for victims has increased, so that restitution is likely to be awarded more frequently. Third, there are increasing pressures for intermediate sanctions, because of the high cost of incarceration, questions regarding whether incarceration is effective in deterring future crime, and the need to limit prison space to the most serious offenders.

Despite these three pressures for increasing the number and amount of economic sanctions imposed on offenders, the reality is that large proportions of these sanctions are not paid. Collection rates for restitution are around 50 percent (Cohen, 1995). At the federal level, there is more than $35 billion in unpaid fines (Mendoza & Sullivan, 2006). The usual assumption is that nonpayment is the result of offenders not having sufficient means to pay the sanctions. Aside from inability to pay, however, there are three alternative explanations for high rates of nonpayment: lack of understanding of the sanctions, disagreement with the rationale for the sanctions, and belief that the sanctions are unfairly ap...

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