'Full of injustice': Burden of court fines vary by race, county in WA
Remember Ferguson and racial inequities in fines, etc.? That helped trigger the uprising?
https://crosscut.com/equity/2022/07/full-injustice-burden-court-fines-vary-race-county-wa
'Full of injustice': Burden of court fines vary by race, county in WA
Black, Indigenous and Latino people in Washington have disproportionately higher court fines and fees, a recent study found, making it harder for some to rebuild after prison.
by Wilson Criscione
Nathaniel Sanders still remembers what he said when the judge ordered him to pay $65,000 in restitution and other court fees decades ago.
“I made a joke, ‘Do you know what the interest is going to be on this? When I get released, you might as well give me a gun, a pager and a bag of drugs so I can pay this off,’” Sanders recalls.
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This story is part of a series called Justice by Geography from InvestigateWest. The independent news nonprofit is dedicated to investigative journalism in the Pacific Northwest. Visit invw.org/newsletters to sign up for weekly updates.
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“How do you pay off a quarter-million debt when you’re unemployed and trying to do everything else — pay probation costs, find a place to live in Seattle, pay insurance and the cost of daily life?” Sanders said. “Imagine all that on top of a quarter-million debt. It’s inconceivable.”
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Legal financial obligations, or LFOs, can burden people with suffocating debt long after they’ve done their time in prison. Yet the way court fines and fees are imposed in Washington can depend both on who you are and where the crime occurred. Black, Indigenous and Latino people are given more LFOs at higher rates than Asian or White people, a 2021 Seattle University School of Law study found. Meanwhile, counties and judges vary widely in how they assess and collect legal financial obligations, according to a recent report by the Washington State Supreme Court Minority and Justice Commission. Rural counties may rely more on these fines and fees to subsidize their budget, and some courts may see them as necessary punishment for those convicted of crimes.
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And many counties add an additional fee just for collecting the court debt in the first place. Clerks said that without the fee, they would have to ease up on their efforts to collect these debts.
“I’m not sure if we could continue our program if we lose the fee entirely,” one clerk reported.
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