The Crippling Costs of the Juvenile Justice System: a Legal and Policy Argument for Eliminating Fines and Fees for Youth Offenders

• Citation: Vol. 69 No. 6
• Publication year: 2020

The Crippling Costs of the Juvenile Justice System: A Legal and Policy Argument for Eliminating Fines and Fees for Youth Offenders

Leigh R. Shapiro

THE CRIPPLING COSTS OF THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM: A LEGAL AND POLICY ARGUMENT FOR ELIMINATING FINES AND FEES FOR YOUTH OFFENDERS

Abstract

Across the United States, approximately one million youth appear in juvenile court each year. In almost every state, youth and their families face monetary charges for a young person's involvement in the juvenile justice system. Too often the inability to pay subjects juveniles and their families to incarceration, suspension of driver's licenses, an inability to expunge records, and economic and social stress, and pushes the youth offender deeper into the juvenile justice system.

Over one hundred years ago, the Illinois legislature established the first separate juvenile court system. That system was designed to recognize that youth are different from adults and to respond with a focus on rehabilitation. Over the course of the century, while state juvenile justice systems have changed, the idea of a separate system has become firmly entrenched nationally and the core goals of supporting youth, assisting rehabilitation, and improving outcomes have remained the same. Fines and fees for youth offenders undermine these core values.

This Comment argues that fines and fees imposed on youth offenders should be eliminated nationwide because they ignore the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Bearden v. Georgia, they would be categorically banned under a correct interpretation of the Excessive Fines Clause, they are applied unlawfully under state statutes, they exacerbate economic and racial disparities, they increase recidivism rates for juveniles, and they create hardship for families, pushing responsibility onto sometimes uninvolved parents. Congress must safeguard the due process rights of youth and families and ensure the juvenile justice system, designed to support and rehabilitate, does not instead impose undue harm on juveniles and their families.

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Introduction...........................................................................................1307

I. Fines and Fees for Youth Offenders.......................................1310
II. Elimination of Fines and Fees for Youth Offenders: Case Studies...........................................................................................1318
III. Legal Reasons to Eliminate fines and Fees for Youth Offenders......................................................................................1324

A. Debtors' Prison and the Misapplication of Bearden .............. 1324
B. Incorrect Interpretation of "Excessive" and "Fine" ............. 1333
C. Unlawful Application of State Statutes................................... 1339

IV. Policy Reasons.............................................................................1340

A. Exacerbating Economic and Racial Disparities ..................... 1341
B. Increasing Likelihood of Recidivism ...................................... 1344
C. Creating Hardship on Families.............................................. 1345

Conclusion...............................................................................................1348

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Introduction

Amir Whitaker had a very unstable upbringing.¹ His father was in and out of jail, many of his relatives, including his mother, were addicted to drugs, and he lived off of his grandparents' Social Security checks.² Due to his family's lack of income, at age fifteen, crack cocaine addicts became Amir's clients.³ To him, this job was a crime of poverty.⁴ Amir explained: "When you're in high school and you're having to provide breakfast for yourself, I had no other opportunities."⁵ In 2000, the police raided the house in which Amir lived.⁶ Amir, still a juvenile, and his mother were arrested.⁷ Amir was charged and spent two days in a juvenile detention facility, after which he was released into his aunt's custody.⁸ At Amir's sentencing hearing, he avoided further jail time, but the judge ordered probation, revoked his driver's license, and imposed a fine of roughly two thousand dollars.⁹ Amir said that he "had never had that amount of money, even when selling drugs."¹⁰ Amir managed to obtain a job at Burger King making $5.15 an hour; however, every time he saw his probation officer, he was required to pay a certain amount so he did not violate probation.¹¹ "As the fines loomed," Amir felt he had no choice but to start selling drugs again.¹²

Not only do fines and fees negatively affect the individual juvenile charged, but they also affect their families. Michael Rizo was introduced to the criminal justice system at the early age of three when his mother was incarcerated.¹³ Throughout his childhood, Michael cycled in and out of foster care, and when he was eleven, he was arrested for the first time.¹⁴ Following his first arrest, Michael was repeatedly arrested and detained.¹⁵ As Michael's arrests piled up, so too did his fees for court-ordered ankle monitoring bracelets and drug tests,

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and his lodging and food while incarcerated.¹⁶ The county charged Michael's mother forty dollars every day Michael was incarcerated.¹⁷ By the time Michael was eighteen, his mother owed the county over $25,000.¹⁸ Michael felt so guilty for "taking food away from his family's table," that at one point, he ran away from home.¹⁹

Additional examples of these fines and fees affecting juveniles' families occurred in Orange County, Contra Costa County, and Los Angeles County, all in California. In Orange County, Maria Rivera was charged more than $16,000 for her son's detention.²⁰ Maria sold her house to pay the county more than $9,500; however, when the county pursued the rest of the debt, Maria was forced to file bankruptcy.²¹ It was not until a federal court ordered Orange County to stop pursuing the debt that the county ceased.²² In Contra Costa County, Mariana Cuevas was charged roughly $10,000 for her son's detention, even after all charges were dropped against him.²³ As a housecleaner, Mariana was already struggling to make ends meet.²⁴ In Los Angeles County, Sally Stokes was charged over $1,000 for her granddaughter's detention.²⁵ Sally was living on Social Security benefits and could not afford to make payments.²⁶ Rather than discharge the debt, the county spent nearly $13,000, more than ten times the fine, to pursue Sally's debt.²⁷

In 1899, the Illinois legislature passed the Juvenile Court Act, establishing the nation's first juvenile court.²⁸ The separate juvenile system was "designed to [appreciate] that youth are different from adults," and to respond to these

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differences with a "focus on rehabilitation and child development."²⁹ Although "state juvenile justice systems have changed over time," they have always maintained the core values of "supporting youth, assisting rehabilitation, developing youth competency, and improving outcomes."³⁰ However, court fines and fees risk undermining these core values.³¹ In Amir's case, rather than assisting in his rehabilitation, his fines led to him selling drugs again.³² In Michael's case, rather than improving outcomes, he felt so guilty about his fines that he ran away from home.³³ In the other cases noted above, juveniles' families were paying the fines and fees,³⁴ which ignored the notion that the juvenile system is supposed to focus on the youth offender.

This comment argues that fines and fees for youth offenders should be eliminated nationwide for several reasons: they ignore the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Bearden v. Georgia;³⁵ they would be categorically banned under a correct interpretation of the Excessive Fines Clause; and they are applied improperly under state statutes. Additionally, these financial burdens exacerbate economic and racial disparities, increase recidivism rates for juveniles, and push responsibility onto sometimes uninvolved parents. Part I provides a brief overview of the different fines and fees that can be imposed on youth offenders. Part II addresses the recent legislation in California that eliminated fines and fees for youth offenders and several other jurisdictions that have scaled back juvenile fines and fees in the past few years. Part III discusses the legal reasons why Congress should ban fines and fees for youth offenders, including the ban of debtors' prison, the argument that these financial burdens constitute excessive fines as defined in the U.S. Constitution, and the unlawful application of state statutes. Part IV examines the policy reasons why Congress should ban fines and fees for youth offenders, such as the exacerbation of disparities, the increase in recidivism, and the hardship on families.

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I. Fines and Fees for Youth Offenders

This Part provides a brief overview of some of the Legal Financial Obligations (LFOs) that are imposed on youth offenders and their parents when a juvenile becomes entangled with the criminal justice system.³⁶ LFOs are fines, fees, costs, and restitution imposed by a court over and above a criminal sentence.³⁷ These financial obligations are authorized or required in every state, except for california, and are imposed on youth offenders and their parents in forty-one states.³⁸ LFOs include, among other things, fees for DNA samples, electronic monitoring bracelets, jury fees, public defenders, room and board, and drug testing.³⁹

Some may ask, "How did we get here?" The answer is an increase in the correctional population. Between 1980 and 2016, the total adult correctional population rose from approximately 1,842,000 to roughly 6,613,000.⁴⁰ As a result of this increase, the cost of running prisons, jails, probation, parole, and courts increased.⁴¹ Due to the increase in these costs, states were faced with budget deficits.⁴² To offset these costs, courts started charging criminal defendants, including juveniles, for associated expenses.⁴³ However...