Photo Illustration by Michele Abercrombie
Across the country kids, and their families, that are part of the juvenile justice system are faced with fines and fees and children who commit crimes are also often ordered to pay restitution as part of their sentence. These costs leave them in debt and push them further into the justice system.
Youth who cannot afford to pay will often face consequences from extended probation to going into debt. Many families also will go into debt trying to pay the costs of the juvenile justice system.
Poor families and families of color are often affected the most by these fines and fees, said Andrew Keats, staff attorney from the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia who has been researching fines and fees for since 2019.
“Black and brown families who are least able to pay are having the greatest impact and find themselves most involved in the juvenile justice system just as they are in the criminal justice system,” Keats said.
The U.S. Justice Department investigated police departments after the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, Missouri. This investigation showed that policing and ticketing practices are putting minority families in debt. The money people have to pay is used to fund “services that benefit all of society,” Keats said, adding that it is the poorest people and the families who are least able to pay that.
“It bears out in collection rates,” Keats said. “Most of this debt does go unpaid. Some states will pay lots of money to collection agencies and various other third parties or lawyers to try to enforce and collect the money [from poor families].”
Keats explained the difference between fines and fees: Fines are typically a punishment for specific offenses from drug crime to property crimes. Fees typically cover the cost of administering court proceedings, including the juvenile’s representation.
Even though representation is provided by the court if an individual cannot afford it, many states charge for the cost of defense counsel.
“You watch ‘Law and Order’ and probably heard the Miranda rights read in every episode,” Keats said. “What they don’t tell you is that even though the Constitution gives you automatically a defense attorney…it does nothing about you being then charged for that representation anyway.”
The cost of the defense attorney is often a flat fee, Keats said — however, the cost of confinement varies. Depending on the state and the detention center, families can accrue a daily charge that is roughly at the rate of child support payments.
“It is usually put on the family because parents have an obligation for the care and support of their children,” Keats said.
When the state takes the parental responsibility off of the parents, they are supposedly providing care and support for the children. This means that the state is charging parents what the law says is a reasonable fee for care; however, it can become very expensive.
Youth and their families may be charged for probation services even if the child never spent one night in a detention center. Probation services are diversionary programs like community service, counsueling, skill building programs, drug and alcohol treatment, sex offender treatment programs or any sort or behavioral or alternative treatments.
“[The courts] look at the family as sort of responsible for why the child…has committed criminal offenses or has committed to conduct that put them in this situation to begin with,” Keats said.
Restitution is another common fee that juveniles are responsible to pay and is used to hold children financially accountable for the crimes that they have committed. Courts often order restitution when there is a victim of a crime and they want financial compensation, said Bob Bermingham, Jr., court service unit director from Fairfax County, Virginia.
Courts have to acknowledge that victims have rights and part of these rights is receiving compensation. Finding the balance between what is reasonable to ask a juvenile to pay and what the victim wants is challenging.
“It causes a significant challenge for us, for the system, in determining what’s an appropriate level of restitution for somebody that is maybe not eligible to work age wise,” Bermingham Jr. said.
Restitution is often ordered in Winchester County, Virginia, even though experts recognize the flaws in the system. Vandalism, property damage and theft are examples of when restitution is ordered.
“Restitution is ordered a lot in cases, which is always kind of difficult when you start saddling a 15-year-old kid with even a couple hundred dollars in restitution,” said Tim Coyne, Virginia public defender. “The child isn’t working. It’s going to follow the parents or the child’s going to have a lot of difficulty being able to get the money up to to pay off.”
In many jurisdictions if a kid cannot pay fines, fees, or restitution is a violation of the terms of probation. This will lead to the child staying on probation and until a juvenile meets the terms of probation, their records will not be sealed.
“If they don’t pay restitution and they’ve made no effort, it’s something the court can look at in terms of saying, well, you didn’t do what you’re supposed to do,” Coyne said. “You can say ‘Judge he’s 13, he has no money and no way to make money’ but if a judge finds that they didn’t live up to the terms of the continuance and can enter an adjudication.”
Probation violations may also lead to the child facing more time incarcerated.
“If you’re out on probation where payment is a condition for completing the terms of your probation, failure to do so could be grounds for revocation of your probation, and so you end up back incarcerated,” Keats said.
Family members may also face jail time to pay off the debt. Some parents and children will choose to do jail time because time served in detention counts toward debt payment. Under normal circumstances these individuals would not be able to make money to pay the debts while meeting their basic needs, so jail time is preferable.
“If you end up doing time for a failure to pay, that may be credited to reduce your debt,” Keats said. “Some people would rather they incarcerate. That’s the only way, you know, that if they get credit towards their debt, that’s going to jail or the only way to pay it off going.”
While families are working to pay off debts, they are often put on payment plans. The debt does not accrue interest, but not paying it can affect credit scores, allow for the court to place liens on taxes, and push people further into the system.
“What [payment plans] means is they’re putting you under court supervision and jurisdiction until your debts are paid off,” Keats said. “So essentially, you’re undressed under court and under system supervision, which obviously the more contact you end up having with our criminal and juvenile justice system, the more likely it is you’re going to find yourself further and further and deeper and deeper in that system with less ways to get out and get on your feet.”
To learn more about this topic, the Juvenile Law Center wrote a 2016 report, “Debtors’ Prison for Kids? The High Cost of Fines and Fees in the Juvenile Justice System,” that can be read here.
Gretchen Lasso is a recent graduate from Kent State University where she majored in journalism and received a minor in digital media production. Originally from Amherst, Ohio, Lasso worked for Kent State’s television station and online newspaper where she won the Tom Olson Newsroom Leadership award. She also studied abroad in China, Germany and Italy where she learned about global journalism. Lasso also interned at WEWS in Cleveland in the investigative unit where she won two regional Emmy awards and a regional Murrow award.