“The Plurality of Perspectives on Monetary Sanctions”: An Introductory Essay

Abstract

The importance of monetary sanctions as a topic of sociological inquiry derives from both their ubiquity in American criminal justice and the socioeconomic realities of many people, especially those ensnared in the criminal legal system. This essay reviews the literature on monetary sanctions across various fields, including applied research, economics, criminology, political science, public policy, and sociology. Early approaches tended to be more system evaluations, whereas later work emphasizes the structural determinants of monetary sanctions and their impacts. Insights from research across time and discipline foreshadow the contemporary debate about monetary sanctions and are important precursors to the work in this volume.

Studying the System of Monetary Sanctions

“…five decades across federal, state, and local governments (Bannon, Nagrecha, and Diller 2010;Fergus 2018;Greenberg, Meredith, and Morse 2016;Harris, Evans, and Beckett 2010;Harris 2016;Shapiro 2014; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 2017). 2 The policy, legal, and social science literatures on monetary sanctions document critical features of this punishment schema (for an extensive review, see Martin et al 2018;Martin 2020). Research shows that individuals struggle to pay their court debts, making it even more difficult to pay for essential expenses such as food, housing, health care, medicine, transportation, and childcare, thereby increasing stress (Harris, Evans, and Beckett 2010;Harris 2016;Pleggenkuhle 2018).…”

“…Third, these tentacles inextricably link monetary sanctions to broader patterns of racial and economic subjugation and social control. 4 Rese a Rch on Mone ta Ry sa nc tions Whereas other reviews of LFO research are organized along disciplinary lines or substantive foci (Martin et al 2018;Martin 2020), we focus here on three periods of scholarship that have emerged in the study of the system of monetary sanctions, running roughly from 1980 to 2005, 2005 to 2013, and 2014 to the present. The early set of studies began in the 1980s, and included a detailed report by Fahy Mullaney (1988) that described monetary sanctions across the country and emphasized their proliferation despite a notable absence from policy debates.…”

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul: Public Assistance, Monetary Sanctions, and Financial Double-Dealing in America

“…Even though people on public assistance may have lower monetary sanctions imposed, their poverty and economic hardships imply that they should not have these LFOs imposed at all, as their failure to pay even small amounts can trigger extended justice system involvement and surveillance. This finding is why some judges and probation officers rely on bench cards to assess indigence or public assistance receipt as a marker of poverty instead of relying on employment or income alone (see Harris, Pattillo, and Sykes 2022, this volume;Martin 2020).…”

“…The use of monetary sanctions varies considerably by jurisdiction because fines and fees are assessed based on unique guidelines established by local, state, and federal authorities (Bannon, Nagrecha, and Diller 2010;Gordon and Glaser 1991;Martin et al 2018;O'Malley 2009;Ruback, Shaffer, and Logue 2004). Proponents of monetary sanctions claim that they promote a sense of accountability among justice impacted people, and that fines and fees are a socially efficient replacement for incarceration (Becker 1968;Becker 1976; for a review, see also Martin 2020). However, courts that impose fines and fees often fail to provide defendants the full extent of these sanctions at sentencing (Anderson 2008;Beckett and Harris 2011;Harris 2016;Martin et al 2018).…”

Legal financial obligations in the United States: A review of recent research

“…These events launched the third era of LFO research. Current studies are multidisciplinary, spanning fields like law, political science, economics, and sociology (Martin, 2020), and expansive, measuring LFOs' structural and long‐term consequences on people and their social networks (Harris et al., 2022; Shannon et al., 2020). Researchers conceive of LFOs as predatory (Harris, 2020; Page & Soss, 2017, 2021), coercive (Pattillo & Kirk, 2021), extractive (Carrillo, 2020; Katzenstein & Waller, 2015; O’Neill et al., 2022), and exploitive (Goldstein et al., 2020).…”