In his recent remarks at the Florida Sheriffs Association’s Winter Conference, the governor commented on the trial of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting perpetrator. He said that the mass murderer’s conviction was long overdue, but he was disappointed that the jury did not recommend capital punishment. Wrongly suggesting that the outcome was the result of a lone juror’s personal opposition to the death penalty, Gov. DeSantis argued:

I think it was really based on one person’s idiosyncratic views. Fine, have a supermajority, but you can’t just say one person. So maybe 8 out of 12 have to agree or something. But we can’t be in a situation where one person can just derail this.

The jury foreman in that decision told CBS News that three jurors voted against recommending the death penalty. One juror in question was reportedly a “hard no” because the juror believed that the gunman was mentally ill.

Setting aside the details of any particular case, Florida’s proposal stands in stark contrast to the growing number of states moving away from executions. Twenty-three other states have totally abolished the death penalty. Governors in three additional states have placed an indefinite moratorium on executions, and at least nine states are actively considering abolishing the death penalty.

Meanwhile, a group of conservative lawmakers and pastors in Oklahoma are calling for a moratorium on executions as the state presses forward with plans to execute Richard Glossip, a man widely believed to be innocent. Reason.com reported:

Glossip’s case has garnered attention from death penalty opponents, because he’s on death row for a murder he did not commit. Glossip was convicted and sentenced to death for allegedly masterminding the murder of Barry Van Treese, the owner of a hotel where Glossip worked, in 1997. Glossip allegedly convinced Justin Sneed, a 19-year-old maintenance man at the hotel at the time, to kill Van Treese, and in exchange the two would split the victim’s money.

Glossip has insisted on his innocence, and there is no corroborating evidence tying him to the crime. Once Sneed confessed to the killing and pointed the finger at Glossip, he was convicted and sentenced to death based upon the testimony of Sneed alone. Sneed avoided the death penalty. Since then, Glossip and his attorneys have been fighting to get the state to reconsider its plans to execute him.

Among the states that still allow the death penalty, all but three require juries to reach a unanimous decision. Alabama requires that 10 out of 12 jurors agree to recommend the death penalty. In Missouri and Indiana, judges can make the final decision if juries are unable to reach a unanimous vote.

Florida previously allowed trial judges to make the final determination regarding capital punishment, with juries only serving an advisory function. However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling in Hurst v. Florida found that the state’s procedure violated defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury.

Initially, Florida lawmakers responded with legislation that would have required 10 out of 12 jurors to recommend capital punishment, but that law was quickly struck down by the Florida Supreme Court. The Florida legislature subsequently passed a law requiring unanimous jury recommendations for capital punishment. The Florida Supreme Court further complicated the issue in 2020 when it reversed its position on jury unanimity, opening the door for Gov. DeSantis’ proposal.

Regardless of whether unanimity is constitutionally required, it would be unwise to lower the threshold. In fact, Florida should put an end to executions altogether.

A wrongful conviction is perhaps the worst possible outcome in the justice system. It consistently deprives innocent people of their liberty and denies justice to victims. The National Registry of Exonerations shows over 80 exonerations in Florida since 1989—cases in which a person was wrongly convicted of a crime and later cleared of all the charges based on new evidence of innocence. Wrongful convictions are made immeasurably worse when they result in wrongful execution by the state.

Additionally, lengthy and costly series of appeals also typically precedes executions—more than half of all inmates on death row in the U.S. have been there for more than 18 years. Lengthy appeals are part of the reason why capital cases are so costly to taxpayers. It is estimated that capital punishment costs Florida about $51 million annually beyond what it would cost to sentence first-degree murderers to life in prison without parole. Thus, Florida would save about $24 million per inmate sentenced to life without parole rather than capital punishment.

However, the delay for appeals between conviction and execution is critically important. It serves as a bulwark against wrongful executions. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 30 people in Florida are among the 191 people in the United States who have been exonerated while they were awaiting execution since 1972. That translates to roughly one exoneration for every 8.2 executions nationwide. Florida’s justice system is much worse than the average at convicting innocent people, with one person on death row being exonerated for every 3.3 executions since 1979. Eleven out of the 30 people exonerated in Florida had wrongly been on death row for more than 10 years before they were cleared.

Clifford Williams, a Florida man, was exonerated in 2019 after serving 43 years on death row––the longest time on record among exonerees nationwide. An appeal uncovered several weaknesses in Williams’s trial, including mistaken witness identification, official misconduct, and an inadequate legal defense. Williams was initially denied compensation due to a prior felony, but Gov. DeSantis later approved a $2 million award.

Proponents of the death penalty might argue that it serves as a deterrent, but there is no consistent evidence to support that claim. Empirical research on the subject is marked by intense methodological disagreements and has produced conflicting results. As a 2015 National Research Council report concluded:

[R]esearch to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates. Therefore, the committee recommends that these studies not be used to inform deliberations requiring judgments about the effect of the death penalty on homicide.

Even in the absence of evidence on deterrence, capital punishment involves significant tradeoffs when it comes to upholding justice. Capital punishment is a sentence reserved for the most heinous and depraved criminals. It is understandable that Gov. DeSantis and many others are frustrated when these individuals receive anything less than swift execution. However, the costs of error in capital cases is high, and Florida’s track record demonstrates that errors are not uncommon. Making it easier to send people to death row risks more cases like Clifford Williams’ experience of wrongly losing 43 years on death row while adding financial consequences on top of concerns about justice.

Jury unanimity doesn’t eliminate wrongful convictions and executions, but lowering the standard, as Gov. DeSantis has expressed he would like to see happen in Florida, would only increase the opportunity for errors that could result in wrongful executions by the state.

Instead of taking this misguided cue from Gov. DeSantis, Florida lawmakers should consider abolishing the death penalty altogether.

The post Florida should abolish capital punishment, not make it easier appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Seven years after legalization, many Alaskans are still saddled with criminal records for low-level marijuana possession. Twenty-four other states have already adopted reforms that facilitate the expungement or sealing of marijuana-related criminal convictions. 

House Bill 28 is a small but necessary step toward justice in Alaska.

The post Alaska House Bill 28 would help provide justice for those harmed by marijuana prohibition appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Fines and fees are commonplace throughout the justice system. In many cases, fines are considered desirable because they are an intermediate form of punishment. Slapping someone with a fine is less severe than incarceration but is tough punishment for many low-level offenses. A person may be charged a fine for criminal or civil infractions. In addition to fines, a person might also be charged a host of assessments, fees, and surcharges explicitly intended to raise government revenue and offset the costs of administrating the justice system.

Traffic tickets are among the most common sources of fine revenue in California. The hidden fees attached to traffic fines can add up fast. For instance, the base fine for going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit in Orange County is just $35. But, after a menagerie of assessments, fees, and surcharges are added, the total ticket amount typically climbs to $226. Ticket revenue is then used for many government purposes unrelated to the traffic ticket, including funding the construction and maintenance of court buildings, DNA testing, and county emergency medical services.

Cities, counties, and the state government all get a slice of ticket revenues. Among the various hidden fees in California traffic tickets is a 20 percent state surcharge which adds $7 to a $35 speeding ticket. As State Assemblymember Adam Gray once explained, that surcharge was created in 2002 to help alleviate the budget deficits of that time and was supposed to be rolled back in 2007. But, 15 years after the supposed expiration, California continues to generate revenue for the state government via the surcharge from traffic tickets.

The primary responsibilities of the legal system are to promote public safety and uphold justice. Pressure to raise revenue, at best, undermines—and at worst, directly conflicts with—those responsibilities. A recent report from Catalyst California and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California found that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department dedicates significant time and resources to traffic stops with few public safety benefits.

Fines and fees are also highly regressive relative to alternative revenue sources. In other words, they tend to burden lower-income individuals disproportionately. A $226 speeding ticket is a minor inconvenience for many Southern Californians but could be catastrophic for many other lower-income drivers. According to a recent Federal Reserve report, nearly one-third of Americans could not afford a $400 emergency expense if it arose.

California lawmakers have wisely passed several reforms in recent years aimed at reducing fines and fees. For example, California notably became the first state to abolish all administrative fees in juvenile delinquency cases back in 2018. And the state’s counties are now no longer allowed to charge fees to cover the cost of incarceration, legal representation, electronic monitoring, probation, home supervision, or drug testing in juvenile cases.

Last year, the California State Assembly rolled back late fees on outstanding court debts. Previously, if someone missed the initial deadline to pay their traffic ticket, they’d be fined an additional $300 regardless of how much they owed. Now late fees are capped at $100. The legislation is estimated to have relieved more than $500 million in outstanding court debts.

Those reforms represent meaningful progress in reducing government’s reliance on fines and fees. Unfortunately, taxation by citation remains widespread across the state. More reform is needed. Reducing the remaining laundry list of assessments, fees, and surcharges that are added to traffic fines would be good next steps.

A version of the column first appeared in the Orange County Register.

The post California should stop relying on taxation by citation appeared first on Reason Foundation.

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the status quo in healthcare. As we recover, lawmakers now have an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and triumphs to chart a new course. Among the most notable changes in care delivery brought about by the pandemic is the rise of telehealth. Yet as we update this report to reflect actions taken in 2022, it is hard not to notice that states have shown a surprising lack of urgency in making comprehensive updates to their telehealth laws.

While telehealth services were available long before the pandemic, millions of Americans used telehealth for the first time over the past three years. The rapid adoption of telehealth technology was enabled by emergency regulatory reforms undertaken at the federal and state levels. For example, federal officials made select changes to the Medicare program, and governors in nearly all 50 states advanced access with flexible provider licensure for new telehealth uses by executive order.

However, most of the emergency actions taken early on in the pandemic were only temporary. When state public health emergency declarations ended, and executive orders were withdrawn, many of the new flexibilities were lost. While some states recognized the benefits of regulatory flexibility and have adopted permanent reforms, a surprising number have only made minor tweaks to their laws, and most only benefit one kind of service or provider.

States must continue to refocus their efforts to ensure clear laws and guidelines are in place for innovation to emerge so that patients and providers can benefit from this helpful tool in any care delivery toolbox. Immediate action will be needed to avoid disrupting patient access to providers they gained during COVID, as other options may not exist in their community. For many patients, cutting off remote access to care is the difference between them receiving care in this manner versus no care at all.

There are four key areas where states have an opportunity to unleash innovation and embrace the potential of telehealth for expanding patient access to high-quality care:

1. Patients Can Access all Forms of Telehealth: State laws and regulations should define telehealth in broad terms that do not favor one mode of telehealth over others or preclude future innovation in care delivery. This is called modality neutrality.
2. Patients Can Start a Telehealth Relationship by Any Mode: State laws and regulations should not prohibit patients from initiating a relationship with a telehealth provider via their preferred modality.
3. Patients Face No Barriers to Across-State Line Telehealth: State laws and regulations should not prevent patients from accessing virtual care from providers licensed in other states.
4. Patients Can See Many Kinds of Providers Over Telehealth: State laws and regulations should allow providers to practice at the top of their license to take the next step toward a more quality-oriented, affordable, and innovative health system.

This report examines all 50 states in these four key areas.

This report does not cover all telehealth-related policy changes in 2022. For example, it ignores actions taken in states to expand or adopt compacts. Many of these smaller changes are not highlighted because they have severe limits, or only tweak around the edges.

By contrast, adopting this state policy agenda for telehealth innovation would remove deleterious barriers that have historically discriminated against those in certain geographies, such as rural communities or underserved urban areas.

The post State policy agenda for telehealth innovation appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Humphrey is the named plaintiff in a 2020 class action lawsuit filed against the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LDOC), James LeBlanc. Following Humphrey’s lawsuit, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) launched an investigation into Louisiana’s prisoner release practices. The Department of Justice investigation concluded that the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections “routinely confines people in its custody past the dates when they are legally entitled to be released from custody, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The DOJ investigation report further noted that “of the 4,135 people released from LDOC’s custody between January and April 2022, 1,108 (or 26.8 percent) were held past their release dates.” On average, overdetained individuals were held 29 days past their release date. A startling 24 percent of those overdetained in Louisiana were held for over 90 days.

Louisiana’s routine practice of overdetention is not only unjust, but it also comes at a steep cost to taxpayers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice report, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections paid parish jails at least $850,000 in fees for the time individuals were incarcerated beyond their lawful sentences over a four-month period. That translates to approximately $2.5 million in annual costs associated with overdetention in the state.

The problem of overdetention isn’t limited to Louisiana. In 2002, a $27 million suit was settled in Los Angeles County that involved overdetention and illegal strip searches. Another $6.2 million settlement was reached in the District of Columbia in 2015, also involving overdetention and strip searches. More recently, in 2022, a class action suit was filed against the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center, and a $300 million suit was filed against New York City, both involving overdetention of inmates.

While overdetention may occur in other jurisdictions, the state of Louisiana is an outlier. Notably, LDOC has been aware of the problem for over a decade. A 2012 internal report and legislative audits conducted in 2017 and 2019 highlighted a consistent pattern of overdetention due to administrative delays, poor data management, and a lack of clearly defined procedures.

LDOC’s outdated computer systems might be at least partially to blame for lengthy delays. The Corrections and Justice Unified Network (CAJUN) is the primary software that LDOC uses to manage its prison system. The software was developed in 1970 and was last updated in 1991. In 2015, the software was supposed to be replaced by a $3.5 million dollar system (Offender Management System-OMS), but the new system was quickly abandoned after less than two months because “it caused confusion and interrupted work efficiency.” LDOC has continued to rely on CAJUN since. In some cases, moving paperwork between departments requires government employees to physically drive documents across the state.

A 2017 audit of Louisiana’s management of offender data found that the tracking of offender data through CAJUN was sometimes inaccurate. The audit revealed numerous “material weaknesses in internal control procedures.” Eleven percent of files reviewed in the audit showed that inmates were at a different facility than what was reflected in CAJUN and 38% of users with access to the system were no longer employed at LDOC.  Notably, the audit concluded that LDOC’s procedures for calculating release dates were inconsistent and could produce errors. The Legislative Auditor recommended implementing a review process for all initial sentence computations.

In a response to the 2017 audit, LDOC Secretary James LeBlanc said, “Calculating each offender’s release dates is a complex process with up to 20 different criteria that impacts the computation process.”

LeBlanc went on to describe LDOC’s efforts to provide employees with training and resources to address challenges associated with high turnover rates and frequent legislative changes that impact sentence computation. A subsequent audit in 2019 found no improvement.

As Maybell Romero, associate professor of Law at Tulane University, told The Advocate, “This isn’t rocket science. Every other state — at least most of them — has a system that works.”

LDOC’s current practices cannot continue. The DOJ report includes several remedial recommendations, including substantial technological upgrades and the decommissioning of CAJUN. The DOJ also recommended the establishment of new policies and procedures related to personnel training, interagency coordination, and quality assurance and supervision.

At a minimum, LDOC should adopt all of the DOJs recommendations, although the severity and duration of the agency’s misconduct suggest that broader cultural changes are necessary. Other jurisdictions should also take note of LDOC’s failures and take proactive measures to avoid unlawful overdetention.

The post Louisiana has been detaining people beyond their legal release dates for over a decade appeared first on Reason Foundation.

The housing shortage is not new. Even before the supply chain and labor disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) estimated a nationwide shortage of 2.5 million housing units.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and recession, many homebuilders went out of business or scaled back significantly. The Census Bureau collects data on the number of new single-family and multi-family unit construction projects started each month. Beginning in 2006, the number of new housing starts fell precipitously before slowly increasing throughout the 2010s. New multi-family starts quickly recovered, while single-family starts have remained well below pre-recession levels.

The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to cost increases in building materials and challenges in hiring qualified labor. By the fourth quarter of 2020, Freddie Mac’s housing shortage estimate grew to 3.8 million units across the country.

In Oct. 2021, a record-breaking 76% of homebuilders reported labor shortages. Between May 2020 and May 2021, the price of lumber soared by nearly 120%. In July 2022, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) estimated that inflated lumber costs increased the price of an average single-family home by $14,345. Monthly rents for newly constructed apartment units were estimated to be $51 higher than before the pandemic began.

Supply chain problems now appear to be easing, but the effects of COVID-19 will continue to be felt in the homebuilding industry. New housing starts declined throughout most of 2022, and industry experts are increasingly concerned about the near future of the housing market. The Federal Reserve’s increase of interest rates, intended to curb inflation, also adds to mortgage costs. NAHB’s homebuilder sentiment index asking “respondents to rate market conditions for the sale of new homes” declined for the twelfth consecutive month in Dec. 2022.

In addition to recent materials and labor challenges, homebuilders must also navigate a tangled web of land-use regulations, fees, and permitting processes. Even for experienced builders who know the process, permitting delays and other bureaucratic hurdles introduce uncertainty and add to the construction cost. A 2021 estimate from the National Association of Home Builders claims regulatory compliance costs can add nearly $94,000 to the price of an average home. High compliance costs may also incentivize builders to prioritize building homes for the relatively high-margin luxury market. The average size of newly constructed homes has been rising steadily since the 1980s, and starter homes under 1,400 square feet are becoming less common.

While the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are temporary, excessive land-use regulations have many longer-term implications for housing supply. Before the pandemic, research in the Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics by economists Joseph Gyourko and Raven Molloy found that home prices regularly outpaced construction costs between 1980 and 2013. Economists generally agree that regulation is responsible for the observed divergence between home prices and construction costs.

Effectively, land-use regulations limit the supply of developable land or restrict the amount of housing that can be built on a particular area of land. Supply constraints, not building costs, have driven the increase in housing prices over recent decades. In many cases, local regulations effectively outlaw higher-density housing options that may be necessary to meet the demand for housing, particularly in urban areas. In the absence of housing policy and land-use reforms, homebuilders may be unable to overcome the growing shortage of housing units.

Local governments could help alleviate the housing shortage by reducing regulatory uncertainty and adopting more permissive zoning practices. The specific needs of each jurisdiction will vary. Particularly in high-demand urban areas, zoning changes may be required to allow for additional multi-family or mixed-use development. Higher-density development may also be enabled by reducing minimum lot sizes, reducing or eliminating minimum parking requirements, allowing accessory dwelling units, or increasing building height limits.  

The nationwide housing shortage continues to burden Americans with higher housing costs. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the shortage, but the much longer-term impacts of excessive regulation have contributed to rising housing costs for several decades. Even as pandemic-related disruptions subside, local governments must act to reduce the restrictions, compliance costs, and uncertainty introduced by burdensome land-use regulations.

The post Land-use regulations continue to cause housing shortage appeared first on Reason Foundation.

The primary responsibilities of the legal system are to promote public safety and to provide for justice. Pressure to raise revenue, at best, undermines and, at worst, directly conflicts with those responsibilities. When incentives are misaligned, police departments and court systems become more concerned with taxation by citation than carrying out their core functions. Such conflicts of interest can undermine the legitimacy of the criminal justice system. 

Using data from the Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances, Reason Foundation created this data visualization tool to shed some light on the amount of revenue generated through fines and fees in 2020, the most recent year for which data is available.

In 2020, local governments across the United States collected just under $9 billion in fines and fees. Local governments in three states—New York ($1.4 billion), California ($1.26 billion), and Texas ($1.17 billion)—collected well over a third of the $9 billion in fines and fees in 2020.

Local governments in New York, California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, New Jersey, Washington, and Pennsylvania** collected the most fines and fees in 2020. In all, 20 states saw their local governments bring in more than $100 million in fines and fees in 2020.

On a per capita basis, local governments in New York, Illinois, Texas, and Georgia collected more than $35 per resident in fines and fees in 2020. In contrast, local governments in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Maine, Nebraska, and Kentucky* collected less than $3 in fines and fees revenue per resident in 2020.

Local governments use fines and fees as a significant source of revenue

In 2019, local fines and fees revenue accounted for less than 2% of pre-pandemic state general revenue in all 50 states. The year 2017 is the most recent year for which comprehensive local revenue data are available. In 2017, 28,159 U.S. cities, townships, and counties reported a total of $4,975,608,000 in revenue from fines and fees after excluding jurisdictions without sufficient data (see data and methodology notes below). In most places, fines and fees accounted for less than 5% of general revenue.

However, a sizable minority of jurisdictions in the United States appear to be highly dependent on criminal justice and court-related fines and fees. At least 482 local governments derived 10% or more of their general revenue from fines and fees in 2017.

In fact, in 176 local U.S. jurisdictions, the money from fines and fees accounted for 20% or more of that government's total general revenue in 2017.**

Going further, there were 42 municipalities where fines, fees, and forfeits made up 50% or more of the general revenue.

Rural areas with relatively small populations tend to be the most dependent on fines and fees. Along major roadways, so-called speed-trap towns appear common. Due to data limitations, these numbers understate the scope and scale of the revenue generated by local fines and fees in many states.

U.S. cities, townships, and counties getting more than 5% of their revenue from fines and fees in 2017

For more information, please see Reason Foundation's recently released policy brief, "Fines and fees: Consequences and opportunities for reform."

Recommendations for reform

Fines and fees have turned many courts into revenue centers for state and local governments. While most governments do not derive a significant portion of their general revenues from fines and fees, some are almost entirely dependent on them. Nonetheless, fines and fees are not a reliable source of revenue.

Moreover, using fines and fees to directly fund courts, law enforcement agencies, or other government activities can result in undesirable conflicts of interest. In addition to these fiscal considerations, fines and fees have devastating consequences on low-income individuals, racial minority groups, and juveniles and their families.

The following policy recommendations address the primary fiscal considerations associated with fines and fees, ensure accountability, and promote fairness within the justice system.

Eliminate user fees and poverty penalties

User fees effectively transfer costs away from taxpayers and onto individual users of government services. While user fees are appropriate and desirable in many contexts, they do not make sense in the justice system. The rule of law benefits all members of society, and the users of courts—particularly defendants—are often those who are least likely to be able to pay for their operations. Funding law enforcement and court systems through user fees make access to justice regressive—costing the poor far more relative to their income or wealth than the middle class or wealthy. That is fundamentally unjust. Funding the legal system through user fees also reduces the opportunity for lawmakers to weigh funding priorities, rein in excess, and ensure that the system is funded appropriately.

Poverty penalties, including interest fees, late fees, payment plan fees, and collection fees are particularly regressive. These fees punish individuals for their financial status rather than their crimes, and this undermines the objective of fairness within the justice system. Moreover, such punitive financial penalties may hinder the ability of former offenders to reintegrate, contributing to high recidivism rates.

Fully fund courts from state budgets

Eliminating user fees in the justice system may require states to assume greater responsibility in funding their court systems. Allocating funds from general revenues would protect against potential conflicts of interest. The particular structure of court systems in each state may complicate this process, especially in states without unified court systems. This obstacle is worth overcoming to ensure that courts are adequately and equitably funded.

Develop standardized tools to determine the ability to pay and scale fines accordingly

Determination of a defendant's ability to pay fines should not be left solely to the subjective assessment of an individual judge. This can result in wildly different outcomes for otherwise comparable defendants. Establishing standard practices would ensure that individuals are treated equally under the law. Scaling fines according to an individual's ability to pay would also reduce the administrative costs associated with pursuing uncollectable debts.

Affidavits, bench cards, or ability-to-pay calculators may be used to standardize ability-to-pay determinations. Income-based fines, or day fines, could also be used to scale penalties according to an individual's financial status. There is room for experimentation among the states in this area. Still, state law should clarify the factors that are considered when determining an individual's ability to pay. Defendants should be made aware of these factors and what documentation they will be expected to provide.

Provide alternatives to monetary sanctions

Indigent defendants should be able to receive alternatives to monetary sanctions. Community service is one possible alternative to fines but it may prove overly burdensome for some. For example, community service may conflict with work schedules or family obligations. Such conflicts should be avoided, as maintaining employment and social ties are critical to reducing the risk of recidivism. Courts should be able to consider a range of alternatives, including waivers, job training, and drug or mental health treatment. Incarceration should never be considered an alternative to monetary sanctions, and fees should never be charged for alternatives to monetary sanctions.

Eliminate all fines and fees in juvenile cases

The objective of the juvenile justice system should be to rehabilitate young offenders and avoid future escalation in their criminality. Fines are a purely punitive measure and do not serve any rehabilitative function. They do, however, place undue financial burdens on youth and their families. Juveniles should be considered indigent by default, and their families should not be held responsible for any monetary sanctions they incur.

End driver's license suspensions for failure to pay

Driver's license suspensions are an inefficient and counterproductive penalty for failure to pay fines and fees. There are significant administrative costs associated with the enforcement of suspensions. Driver's license suspensions also inhibit the ability of individuals to secure and maintain employment necessary to fulfill their legal financial obligations.

Collect and publish data on court debt and collection practices

Data on fines and fees is needed for transparency, accountability, and fiscal responsibility. Without sufficient information, lawmakers, advocates, and other stakeholders are less able to understand the problems related to fines and fees and identify possible policy reforms.

Currently, most states do not adequately track the imposition and collection of fines and fees. When information is available, it is often dispersed among local governments, individual courts, and private collections firms. This practice not only undermines the ability of lawmakers to make informed policy and budgetary decisions but also contributes to the broader perception that the justice system is unfair and unaccountable. Enabling citizens to access information related to fines and fees would help restore the justice system's legitimacy and allow them to hold their lawmakers more accountable.

At a minimum, states should collect and publish information related to fines and fees, including:

• The monetary amount of fines and fees levied annually;
• The revenue generated by fines and fees;
• How fines and fees revenue is allocated;
• And the costs associated with the collection of the fines and fees.

*Correction: A previous version of this post misstated Kentucky's fines and fees data as $31 per capita rather than $2.50 per capita.

**Correction: A previous version of this data incorrectly displayed data for Jamestown, South Carolina, where Jamestown, Pennsylvania, is located. Jamestown, Pennsylvania, should not have appeared on the map, "U.S. cities, townships, and counties getting more than 5% of their revenue from fines and fees in 2017," above, which shows municipalities that get more than 5% of their general revenue from fines and fees. As reported by the Census Bureau, Jamestown, Pennsylvania, collected approximately $2,000 in fines and forfeits revenue in 2017, which accounted for less than 5% of the town's general revenue that year.

The correct data for Jamestown, South Carolina, is as follows:
Fines and Forfeits: $105,000
Percent of revenue: 64.4%
General Revenue: $163,000
Per Capita: $1,313

This error was made in the GPS settings of the "U.S. cities, townships, and counties getting more than 5% of their revenue from fines and fees in 2017" above, but the error was not made in any state-level calculations.

Notes on data and methodology

In general, there is a severe lack of data regarding the revenue generated from fines and fees. This lack of data can make it difficult for policymakers to assess the scale of the problem and the potential impacts of reform. In the absence of data, perceived reliance on fines and fees revenues to fund court systems and other government activities can present a significant obstacle to reform.

The Annual Survey of State and Local Finances includes a line item for "Fines and Forfeits." According to the Census Bureau's classification manual, Fines and Forfeits includes revenue from:

• Penalties imposed for violations of the law
• Civil penalties (e.g., for violating court orders)
• Court fees, if levied upon conviction of a crime or violation
• Court-ordered restitution to crime victims where the government actually collects the monies
• Forfeits of deposits held for performance guarantees or against loss or damage (such as forfeited bail and collateral)

The Census Bureau's survey of state and local government finances has been administered annually since 1957. A census is conducted every five years (years ending in '2' and '7'). In the intervening years, a sample of state and local governments is used to collect data. A new sample is selected every five years (years ending in '4' and '9'). Even in census years, many values are imputed rather than being collected directly.

In our analysis of individual local governments, we excluded any city, county, or township whose "fines and forfeits" value was imputed. We also excluded any jurisdiction that reported zero general revenues or for whom more than 50% of line items were imputed. As a result of those data filters, approximately 8,330 cities, townships, and counties were excluded from our analysis.

The post Local governments collected $9 billion in fines and fees in 2020 appeared first on Reason Foundation.

In August 2014, Michael Brown, Jr., was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. The incident triggered several nights of protests and tense interactions between police and city residents. The U.S. Department of Justice subsequently launched a civil rights investigation into the Ferguson Police Department, the results of which were released in a report published by the DOJ in March 2015.

The Department of Justice report offered a scathing review of the Ferguson Police Department. Specifically, the investigation revealed widespread racial bias and discrimination within the police department. Moreover, the report noted that:

Ferguson’s law enforcement practices are shaped by the City’s focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs. This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson’s police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community.

Law enforcement officials in Ferguson delivered higher revenues through fines and fees resulting from municipal code enforcement. Between 2010 and 2015, fines and fees nearly doubled as a share of Ferguson’s general revenues—from $1.30 million (12%) to 3.09 million (23%). As noted in the DOJ report, fines and fees charged by the city were higher than those charged by neighboring municipalities. For example, the charge for “Weeds/Tall Grass” in a neighboring city was just $5. In Ferguson, the charges for the same violation were between $77 and $102.

Ferguson is a particularly stark example of a problem in jurisdictions across the country. Fines and fees are often used as a source of state and local government revenues. Fines and fees revenue is typically used to fund court operations, including salary and personnel costs. However, some governments rely on courts to generate revenue for other services as well. In some cases, this revenue is earmarked for a specific purpose related to the offense committed. In others, it goes to a government’s general fund or to purposes wholly unrelated to the justice system. The use of fines and fees as a source of revenue raises significant questions of fairness and may create poor incentives for law enforcement agencies, courts, and other government entities, which may be dependent on the revenues generated.

The primary responsibilities of the legal system are to promote public safety and to provide for justice. Pressure to raise revenue, at best, undermines—and at worst, directly conflicts with—those responsibilities.

When incentives are misaligned, police departments and court systems become more concerned with “taxation by citation” than carrying out their core functions. Such conflicts of interest also serve to undermine the legitimacy of the justice system among the public.

Lawmakers are beginning to recognize the problems presented by fines and fees, but fiscal concerns may present a barrier to reform.

The aim of this policy brief is to summarize existing research on the effects of fines and fees in the justice system and to present potential reforms that would resolve such fiscal concerns.

Full policy brief — Fines and fees: Consequences and opportunities for reform

The post Fines and fees: Consequences and opportunities for reform appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Small oversaw the implementation of an innovative public safety program that combined police, fire, and emergency medical services under the new Palmyra Department of Public Safety, with Small becoming Palmyra’s first public safety director. In the time Small has served in this role, the village’s property crime rate has plummeted by 88% to just over five property crimes per 1,000 residents. The village managed to accomplish this feat while simultaneously reducing its fine revenue by more than two-thirds. 

Reason Foundation’s Vittorio Nastasi and Austil Stuart recently sat down with James Small to discuss his successes in Palmyra which he credits to an outcome-based policing approach.  

Nastasi: Can you describe how Palmyra’s public safety agencies were performing before you were hired? 

Small: Things hadn’t gone well in public safety in general for a long time. For both police and fire, there was a real vacuum in leadership. For example, the previous police chief really struggled in his role, was removed by the board, and had not been replaced for 3 years after he was removed. So, we had a police department, we had cars that said ‘police’ on them, and we hired police officers to go out and do police things. But there was no vision beyond that. 

Without any clear leadership, the mentality was, “Okay, we’re going to go out and enforce some things.” But there wasn’t any purpose behind that enforcement effort, so officers would go out on the highway in the 25 MPH zone writing speeding tickets. But ultimately, that wasn’t doing anything for the community. There was a high property crime rate that was running about twice the state average, you weren’t seeing things getting prosecuted properly, and there was just a variety of breakdowns in the system.  

Nastasi: What was the community’s perception of the police department? 

Small: There was a real breakdown in trust in the community. I would go out to introduce myself to the community, and people would just tell me about their awful experiences with the police department. Some people described retaliation for making a complaint about an officer. I don’t think it had gotten as far as some of the excessive use of force cases you see on the news, but it was an escalation of conflict within the community. I think that is something we’re seeing in law enforcement in general, and it’s really a failure from a customer satisfaction perspective.  

Nastasi: Writing traffic tickets on the highway was bringing in a lot of revenue for Palmyra, though. Did you get any pushback when you started implementing changes? 

Small: The police department was issuing about $90,000 in fines every year, and that would account for about 10% of the village’s budget. Now, did they actually collect $90,000? That’s a different question, but that’s how much they were budgeting for. I think our number last year was about $27,000, so we’re at about 30% of where we started. The revenue issue definitely came up at points with the board. I had a village board member come up to me one time and say, “All these warnings are costing us a lot of money.” 

Nastasi: Was reducing fine revenue the goal, or just a byproduct of your mission? 

Small: The mission of our department isn’t to raise money. It is to go out and reduce victimization in the community, and we’re doing that extremely well. Reducing victimization required us to change our tactics and stop seeking out enforcement to raise revenue. Some revenue may be generated from some of our work, but it should never be the objective.  

I subscribe to what I call an ‘outcome-based strategy.’ I believe our actions should result in our desired outcomes: reducing victimization in the community, improving trust in the police, and creating a sense of community safety. We need to be focusing on facilitating those outcomes. So, we shifted into this problem-solving mindset to move the vision from the police being punishers to the police being facilitators. 

I think there is a place for tickets, but I think we’ve seen such an overreliance on punishment. We’ve forgotten that the real goal is to change behavior. We should be asking ourselves, “What can we do to facilitate changing behavior and remove obstacles from this person’s path?” 

Nastasi: What does that look like in practice? 

Small: Sometimes it involves referring people to the human services system or coordinating with a probation officer––actions you might think of as being beyond the scope of a traditional law enforcement officer. Take somebody, for instance, that had their license suspended because they weren’t paying their fines. What we do in that situation is give that person a 30-day notice from us saying they need to pay their fines. We print out a document from the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles saying what they need to do to get their license reinstated, how much they owe, what court they must go to, and the court’s address. If they need to extend that 30-day notice, that’s fine. We’ll do that if they’ve made progress or set up a payment plan that might take a little longer than our initial deadline. It’s not a free pass. There are consequences on the other end if they don’t pay their tickets, but we’re giving them a chance. Most people take that chance when you tell them what they need to do.  

Stuart: Can you describe briefly the decision to consolidate Palmyra’s public safety agencies?  

Small: I was hired as the director of public safety providing administrative supervision over the fire and rescue services. I was also hired as the chief of police, and we were going to have a separate fire chief and an emergency medical service director. It was never the plan for me to be the director of all three.  

We had a very severe personnel issue in the fire department. I want to say there were eight chiefs in the 15 years prior to my arrival. My initial recommendation to the board was to dissolve the entire fire service agency. We went around and thought about partnering with one of the neighboring agencies. None of them were interested, so that wasn’t going to be an option in our case.  

One day one of our board members looked at me and said, “Well, I’ve seen you in a police car, a fire truck, and an ambulance all in the same day. Why can’t we just get more people like you?” My answer was that nobody had done it that way. I mean, this model is out there, but every example of it was created on day one as a consolidated public safety department. Previous efforts to merge two departments on the fly like that hadn’t been successful. By the end of 2017, we had fully implemented the combined public safety model. 

Efficiencies gained by consolidating the two budgets together ended up allowing us to add two additional full-time positions. Some of the freed-up funds also absorbed some of the lost revenue from traffic citations. We also trimmed down our vehicle fleet.  

Stuart: How did consolidating the departments help you implement your vision? 

Small: All our police officers have fire and EMS training, so the staff can fill multiple roles on one call. For example, they may need to take law enforcement action during an EMS call. We were concerned that the public wouldn’t want someone with a jacket that has ‘police’ written on the back in their house for some EMS calls where there might be drugs or something involved. That fear hasn’t materialized. I think that has a lot to do with how our police officers interact with people.  

When we’re on an overdose scene, for example, we’re primarily concerned with resolving the medical issue and getting the person whatever treatment they need. Some cases might involve criminal elements that need to be investigated, but by the time we get there, everyone has been cooperative, and they trust the system. Usually, when we take someone like that through the criminal process, it’s to get them to a drug court so they can get into treatment. We work with the district attorney’s office to send them to drug court because giving them a $400 ticket in municipal court isn’t going to change their behavior.  

Stuart: Do you think any of Palmyra’s experience could inform other jurisdictions? Palmyra is a relatively small town with a relatively small police force. How scalable do you think your model is? 

Small: The combined public safety model can work well in rural communities where call volumes are low enough to share personnel across the agencies. This isn’t a good model for large cities with high call volumes, but the philosophy behind it is scalable. Getting police out of this mindset of punishing people into submission is important because I think that’s one of the problems we’ve seen in the criminal justice system. There is too much emphasis on punishment and not enough on changing behavior. There are people that need to be held in prison because the public needs to be protected from them. But in most cases, we should be looking to solve problems. That’s not just a philosophy for police and fire services, it’s how we should be operating as a government generally. That’s how we build trust. I haven’t received a complaint about an officer in five years. When I first got in, I was getting several a month.  

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. 

The post Innovators in Action: James Small, public safety director of Palmyra, Wisconsin appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Fines and fees are commonplace throughout the justice system. In many cases, fines are considered desirable because they are an intermediate form of punishment. In other words, slapping someone with a fine is less severe than incarceration but is tough punishment for many low-level offenses.

A person may be charged a fine for any criminal or civil infraction. In addition to any fines, they might also be charged a host of fees meant to cover court costs. The state court system in Florida is funded through general revenues, but a large share of funding for the state’s clerks of courts is provided by filing fees, service charges, and court costs that are collected from individuals when they interact with the court system.

Because fines and fees are not generally scaled based on income, they tend to disproportionately harm low-income people who are unable to pay. Failure to pay outstanding fines and fees can result in driver’s license suspensions and even incarceration. A recent report by the Fines and Fees Justice Institute found that nearly two million Floridians have their driver’s licenses suspended because of unpaid fines and fees. Considering that approximately 80% of Floridians drive themselves to work and many jobs require a driver’s license, suspending driver’s licenses for non-driving offenses reduces the likelihood those individuals will be able to pay their fines and fees. It is counterproductive to make it even more difficult for individuals to pay off their debts and create additional administrative costs for governments.

The fact that many people are financially unable to pay may provide some explanation for why governments are notoriously bad at collecting outstanding court debts. A report from the Brennan Center for Justice found that only 36% of the fines and fees assessed in Florida between 2012 and 2018 were actually collected, resulting in over $1.13 billion in cumulative unpaid fines and fees.

Even setting aside problems with collection, fines and fees are not a particularly stable source of revenue. In Florida, statewide fines and fees revenue has declined significantly over recent years—a fiscal issue that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Florida’s courthouses were shuttered during the early months of the pandemic, leading to a substantial backlog of cases and disrupted revenue flows. Over that same period, lockdowns and stay-at-home orders kept many drivers off the road, reducing the number of traffic violations­­––a major source of fines and fees revenue in the state.

In the fiscal year ending in Sept. 2020, clerks of courts collected $377 million in fines and fees compared to $432 million in the year prior. Revenues in both years represent a dramatic decline from the $539 million collected in 2009. Declining revenues are already causing trouble for organizations and programs that depend on fines and fees revenue. Epilepsy Florida, for example, pulls in $5 from every seatbelt infraction in the state. In 2020, that translated to $240,000 compared to the whopping $1.1 million the group received in 2014, according to reporting by FL Keys News.

Fortunately, fines and fees revenue make up a very small portion of Florida’s budget, and there are many options for reform. Generally speaking, no program or agency should be specifically funded by fines and fees revenue. Instead, court revenue should be sent into the general fund to avoid poor incentive structures within the justice system.

Fees, which only exist to raise revenue, should arguably be eliminated. Meanwhile, fines, which serve as punishment, could be scaled to account for an individual’s ability to pay.

Florida could also eliminate fines and fees in juvenile cases and abandon the counterproductive practice of suspending driver’s licenses for failure to pay.

These basic reforms would help realign incentives for law enforcement and reduce the disparate impact of fines and fees on low-income communities. Florida lawmakers would be wise to address the fiscal challenges presented by declining fines and fees revenue and put an end to taxation by citation.

The post Florida must stop relying on taxation by citation appeared first on Reason Foundation.

The New York Times recently published a guest essay by Patrick Irving, a maximum security prisoner in a facility just south of Boise, Idaho, who writes that prices at the commissary, an internal store where inmates can buy a limited range of personal items, in Irving’s facility rose by 8.5% in April 2022. Similar price increases have been reported in other prisons across the country. These price increases are particularly harmful to prisoners, who earn little to nothing for their labor.  

According to a report released by the American Civil Liberties Union this year, over 65% of the more than 1.2 million people incarcerated in state and federal prisons work while incarcerated. Among those who are paid, wages typically range between $0.14 and $0.63 per hour. These wages may be subject to further reductions in pay for various legal financial obligations, including paying fines, fees, child support payments, and restitution. Most work assignments in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas are unpaid. 

The issue of prison labor made headlines recently as five states considered ballot initiatives related to slavery in November. The 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery, “except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

The ballot initiatives sought to eliminate similar language in the Tennessee, Alabama, Oregon, Vermont, and Louisiana state constitutions. All the initiatives passed except for the one in Louisiana, where the wording of the proposed amendment generated confusion among voters and prompted some of the initiative’s proponents to turn against the measure.  

Sixteen states, including Louisiana, still have language that permits slavery or involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. It is unlikely that repealing this language will meaningfully impact prison labor practices, but it may open the door to potential legal challenges related to the wages earned by prisoners. 

Notably, the intent of these initiatives is not to prohibit prisoners from working. In Tennessee, for example, the language made an important distinction, reading, “Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.”

As Tennessee State Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis), who helped get the initiative on the ballot, told the Associated Press, “We understand that those who are incarcerated cannot be forced to work without pay, but we should not create a situation where they won’t be able to work at all.” 

Criminal offenders frequently struggle to maintain stable, full-time employment before and after incarceration. There is evidence that prisoners who find employment post-release are less likely to return to prison in the future. Other research has found that individuals with stable, full-time employment are less likely to engage in criminal activity.  

Programs that provide prisoners with work experience while incarcerated are intended to improve post-release employment and recidivism outcomes. According to a recent Brookings Institute report, evidence that these programs reduce recidivism is mixed—although a number of studies have found favorable effects on post-release employment and prison misconduct.

A recent study concluded that the amount of time a prisoner engages in employment programs may be an important factor. Prisoners who spent a greater share of their time employed while incarcerated had lower rates of recidivism, higher rates of post-release employment, and fewer instances of institutional misconduct.  

Given that prison work programs can be beneficial, low wages are the primary source of contention. Commissary prices may rise with inflation, but the wages paid to prisoners are rarely increased. But there are efforts being made across many states to change that. 

Lawmakers in New York and Illinois are seeking to raise prisoner wages even as prison minimum wage legislation has failed in Arizona, Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada, Texas, and Virginia since 2019. Meanwhile, a proposed amendment to the California State Constitution failed to gain legislative support after the California Department of Finance estimated it would cost $1.5 billion in 2022 to pay the state’s $15 minimum wage to 65,000 incarcerated Californians.  

While it is likely not feasible to pay prisoners market wages, current wages are unreasonably low and should, at the very least, be adjusted to account for inflation. Moreover, states should end the practice of deducting legal financial obligations from prisoners’ wages. In particular, “pay to stay” fees––which charge prisoners for room and board and healthcare costs––should be eliminated entirely. Of the 1.2 million people incarcerated in the United States, roughly 85% will leave prison and return to their communities.

The current state of corrections in most states today does little to ensure that returned citizens are equipped with the skills and financial resources to successfully reintegrate into society. The experience of working and earning regular wages while incarcerated can be effective for easing the transition to life “on the outside.” In this light, prison work programs should be viewed as a tool for reducing recidivism rather than sources of revenue.  

The post As inflation rises, incarcerated people are paid less than 63 cents per hour for labor appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Over the last few years, Wakulla County has added between 300 and 500 new homes annually. Higher home prices in Tallahassee have made Wakulla a relatively affordable and attractive place to settle for commuters. The rise of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic has also drawn many residents from other states.

Impact fees are regulatory fees imposed by local governments to pay for the cost of infrastructure investments necessary to accommodate new development. Impact fees are typically charged for infrastructure and services, including roads, water, and wastewater. According to data from Florida’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research, 38  of the state’s 67 counties reported collecting some form of impact fee revenue in 2020. In fact, Wakulla County is the only county in the state that has grown more than 10% over the last decade that does not impose impact fees.

When properly designed and implemented, impact fees act as user fees. They raise money directly from those who benefit from the infrastructure and services funded by the fees. Because of this, impact fees can effectively offset the need to raise additional revenue from other fees and taxes, such as property taxes.

Unfortunately, impact fees are often poorly designed or used as a source of funding for services more appropriately funded through other channels. Many municipalities impose flat fees that are not adjusted to the size or impact of individual housing units. In cases where the impact of development is not uniform, flat fees are highly regressive, meaning that they disproportionately burden low-income families.

Practical limitations can also inhibit rural jurisdictions like Wakulla County from implementing highly complex fee structures. But the objective should be to develop fee schedules that come close to reflecting the relative impact of development without being overly complicated. Scaling impact fees to the square footage of homes or the number of bedrooms is a possible approach to making them less regressive.

To the extent that impact fees reduce the burden of infrastructure costs required by new development, they may serve as a bulwark against more exclusionary land-use policies. In fact, economic research on the subject suggests that impact fees can result in increased housing construction.

Earlier this year, Wakulla County commissioners issued a request for proposals (RFP) seeking bids to conduct an impact fee study to guide the design and structure of impact fees in the county. Yet, commissioners voted 4-1 against moving forward with the RFP after receiving three bids ranging from $69,350 to $99,850.

Commissioners, however, might want to revisit this decision. Impact fees are efficient, user-based revenue sources when they accurately reflect the marginal cost of development to local governments.

The growing pains experienced by Wakulla County are not unique. Rather than rejecting the benefits of growth or forcing existing residents to bear the brunt of new infrastructure costs, Wakulla County should consider implementing well-designed impact fees that accurately reflect the marginal cost of new development.

A version of this commentary first appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat.

The post Properly designed impact fees could help Wakulla County accommodate population growth appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Even small changes to how criminal justice supervision programs are administered can have important effects and help achieve criminal justice reform goals of reducing recidivism and the prison population. Simply sending text message reminders can reduce missed parole and probation meetings by nearly 30 percent, a new Reason Foundation policy brief finds. Reducing the number of missed appointments could help keep some people from being sent back to jail or prison for technical violations.

Probation and parole are intended to provide a more constructive alternative to incarceration by allowing offenders to be supervised within their communities. However, some research suggests that community supervision programs may be contributing to the problem of mass incarceration in unintended ways.

Individuals on parole and probation must adhere to strict rules and procedures. Behaviors that violate these rules, but are not criminal, are considered technical violations. Technical violations include missing appointments with supervising officers, failing drug tests, and violating curfews.

One of the most common and important requirements of individuals on parole and probation is regular contact with a supervising officer assigned to their case through in-person meetings. Supervisors commonly provide employment updates at these meetings, receive support and treatment, and are tested for recent drug use. Higher-risk supervisees are typically required to have more contact through more frequent meetings.

Meanwhile, supervision agencies are frequently underfunded, and supervising officers are overloaded with cases. As the number of people on parole and probation has grown over recent decades, supervising agencies and the officers they employ have been required to do more with less. The coordination of supervision meetings is one significant inefficiency.

A relatively minor reform that focuses on reducing the frequency of missed appointments for probation and parole supervision has considerable promise: sending text messages reminding supervisees to attend upcoming meetings. From picking up prescription medications to reminding us of a doctor’s appointment, text message reminders are commonplace in everyday life for most Californians. Recently, some governments have experimented with sending text message reminders to improve court attendance with positive results.

In a randomized experiment involving text-message reminders for upcoming parole and probation meetings in Arkansas, a sample of individuals on parole and probation were randomly assigned to one of four experimental groups. Three groups received text message reminders for upcoming meetings at different time intervals. The fourth group served as a control group and did not receive any text messages. The group that received a text message one day before their upcoming meeting had 21% fewer canceled meetings and 29% fewer missed appointments relative to the control group, the Reason Foundation brief shows.

These findings suggest that even minor changes, like sending text message reminders, can significantly impact individuals within the criminal justice system. To the extent that missed appointments lead to technical parole and probation violations and increase the burden placed on supervising officers, text-message reminders could be a low-cost improvement. The program only costs the Arkansas Division of Community Corrections about two cents per text message.

Reducing missed appointments could allow supervising officers to spend more time managing the cases of higher-risk supervisees. Research suggests that effective supervision can improve long-term outcomes for individuals on parole and probation, but supervising officers need adequate time and resources to do their jobs effectively.

California should be at the forefront of using technology––in this case, simple text messages––to help citizens reintegrate into society and improve their lives. Of course, much more significant criminal justice reforms could be made to the state’s parole and probation systems. Still, text message reminders for parole and probation meetings are an easy and inexpensive way to help people stay on track and reduce recidivism.

A version of this commentary was originally published in The Orange County Register.

The post How text messages could help California reduce parole and probation violations appeared first on Reason Foundation.

High rates of incarceration in the United States have rightfully garnered significant attention from policymakers, researchers, and the public. However, community supervision programs, including parole and probation, have received comparatively little attention. This disparity is notable given the fact that the number of people under community supervision is more than twice as large as the incarcerated population.

In fact, the 3.9 million people on parole and probation in 2020 accounted for 70% of the total correctional population that year. As policymakers pursue reforms to reduce the incarcerated population, the share of correctional populations under parole and probation has increased. Supervision agencies are often under-resourced and are increasingly required to find ways of doing more with less.

Probation and parole are intended to encourage community reintegration by providing an alternative to incarceration and keeping justice-involved individuals in their communities. However, a growing body of research finds that community supervision programs may be contributing to the problem of mass incarceration in unintended ways. Individuals under community supervision are typically subject to conditions including regular check-ins, drug testing, curfews, electronic monitoring, and the payment of fines and fees. In some cases, failure to comply with these conditions can result in a revocation of community supervision and a return to jail or prison.

Of the reported 1,790,000 individuals who exited probation in 2019, only about 53% successfully completed their probation. Approximately 13% of parole exits that year were attributable to parole revocations that resulted in incarceration. Among those who were revoked and returned to incarceration, about 40% were incarcerated due to technical violations. Only 31% were incarcerated for new crimes, with the remaining 29% incarcerated for other unknown reasons.

One of the most common requirements placed on individuals under community supervision is that they have regular contact with the officers assigned to manage their cases. The nature and frequency of this contact varied depending on the specific needs and risk level of each individual under supervision. One form of contact between supervisees and officers is an in-person parole or probation meeting. These meetings often take place at an agency office and may serve a variety of purposes. Supervisees may provide updates on education and employment, receive support and treatment, and be tested for recent drug use.

Despite their importance to effective supervision, office visits are often difficult to coordinate. Supervisees frequently miss appointments due to work, education, or difficulty securing transportation. Missed appointments and time spent coordinating meetings represent opportunities to improve the use of scarce time by parole and probation officers. Eliminating these inefficiencies would allow officers to focus their time and attention on higher-risk supervisees in greater need of intensive supervision.

Moreover, failure to meet with supervising officers is among the leading forms of technical violations committed by parolees. For example, an analysis of parole violations in Michigan found that failure to report to probation officers was by far the most common type of violation, accounting for over 33% of all recorded violations.

Surprisingly, one relatively low-cost intervention that focuses on reducing the frequency of missed appointments for probation and parole supervision is supported by a growing body of evidence: sending text message reminders to supervisees regarding upcoming appointments.

To assess the potential of test-message reminders to reduce the number of missed parole and probation meetings, a randomized control trial was recently conducted among community supervision participants in Arkansas.

Our findings suggest that sending text scheduled appointments could reduce canceled and missed appointments by as much as 21% and 29%, respectively.

To be sure, there are many necessary reforms to community supervision in the United States. Policymakers should seek to ensure that community supervision is focused on rehabilitation and reintegration rather than doling out punishment. To that end, revocations and incarceration for technical violations should be limited.

Supervising officers must also have sufficient time and resources to effectively support the clients under their supervision. While certainly not a panacea, improving meeting attendance through text message alerts is a cost-effective way of reducing technical violations and improving the efficiency of community supervision programs.

Each year, more than four million Americans are under community supervision. Too often, community supervision programs like parole and probation exacerbate the problem of mass incarceration rather than diverting people away from jail and prison. Individuals on community supervision are subject to a litany of supervision conditions and, more often than not, fail to meet all of those conditions. As many as three-fourths of people under community supervision commit some form of a technical violation of their supervision conditions. These technical violations can result in incarceration, creating a supervision-to-incarceration pipeline. In fact, technical supervision violations account for approximately 23% of state prison admissions each year.

Several reforms are necessary to ensure that community supervision programs fulfill their purposes. Reforms should refocus supervision on reintegrating justice-involved individuals into society and maintaining public safety rather than punishing individuals for minor technical violations. As demonstrated in the Arkansas experiment reviewed in this policy brief, sending text message reminders is an inexpensive and effective way to improve supervision appointment attendance at a cost of just two cents per text message. Improved attendance can reduce the number of technical violations and helps make efficient use of supervising officers’ time and resources.

As the share of correctional populations under parole and probation continues to grow, making efficient use of supervision agency resources will be increasingly important. While text message reminders may only be a minor part of necessary policy reforms within community supervision, their potential impact should not be overlooked.

Full Policy Brief—

Addressing Mass Supervision In the United States: How Text Message Reminders Can Help Reduce Technical Violations of Community Supervision

The post How text message reminders can help reduce technical parole and probation violations appeared first on Reason Foundation.

With the law set to take full effect in less than three months, several Illinois officials have publicly criticized the bill. Illinois State House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, for example, called the elimination of cash bail “a horrible slap in the face to victims and neighborhoods desperately seeking safety.”

Sangamon County State’s Attorney Dan Wright and County Sheriff Jack Campbell filed a lawsuit against Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and others, questioning the constitutionality of the law.  

There are some flaws with the pretrial components of the SAFE-T Act that merit discussion, but it is first important to consider clearly the proper intent of cash bail within the criminal justice system. Cash bail is meant to be a pretrial release mechanism that encourages suspects to show up for court dates. A sum of money determined by the court is paid by the defendant and is refunded after the defendant shows up for their court appearances. This provides a financial incentive for defendants to attend their required court dates.  

Proponents of cash bail sometimes identify an additional purpose: protecting public safety. The theory is that setting high bail amounts is an effective strategy for ensuring that dangerous individuals remain detained during the pretrial process. However, criminal justice reform advocates contend that cash bail is unfair because, in effect, an individual’s likelihood of pretrial release is highly dependent on their economic status.  

There is ample evidence that even short periods of pretrial detention can result in lost employment, severed social ties, a greater risk of conviction, and an increased likelihood of future criminal involvement. For example, a recent study in The Journal of Law and Economics found that being detained increased the likelihood of being convicted regardless of whether the accused is innocent or not, and even more so when the accused is a person of color. Another study in The Journal of Legal Studies found that longer periods of pretrial detention are associated with recidivism.  

It should be noted that in the U.S. legal system, individuals suspected of a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Defendants awaiting trial are, by definition, presumed innocent. Consequently, punishment is not a proper function of bail. Collateral consequences of pretrial detention and economic hardships endured to make bail, therefore, cannot be justified as deserved penalties. 

With these understandings in mind, one can more reasonably evaluate the disparate claims of proponents and critics of the Illinois SAFE-T act.  

Critics of the SAFE-T Act most frequently cite public safety concerns arising from the elimination of cash bail. However, cash bail is not the most effective tool to ensure that dangerous individuals are kept away from the community. Public safety concerns are more appropriately dealt with by determining whether a defendant is eligible for bail, or pretrial release, to begin with. Illinois statute (Sec. 110-6.1.) specifies the circumstances under which an individual may be denied under pretrial release. Generally, those include circumstances in which the defendant is charged with a forcible felony or other serious crime, and it is alleged that the defendant’s release poses a specific, real and present threat to any person or the community. To the extent that critics of the SAFE-T Act are concerned about public safety, their focus should be on these conditions for pretrial detention.   

But the relationship between pretrial detention and public safety is not as straightforward as critics of the SAFE-T Act might assume. There is evidence that pretrial detention can reduce the likelihood that an individual will commit an additional offense while awaiting trial. This is primarily due to the incapacitation effect of pretrial detention. A 2019 study published in The Journal of Law and Economics examining criminal cases in New York City found that pretrial detention reduced the probability of being rearrested by 12.2 percentage points for felony defendants and 10.6 percentage points for misdemeanor defendants. However, the same study found that these short-term benefits were offset in the longer term by future arrests. These findings are consistent with other research which suggests that pretrial detention results in higher rates of recidivism.  

So long as bail amounts are reasonable and appropriately consider individuals’ financial circumstances, cash bail is a reasonable tool for encouraging court attendance. Unfortunately, bail amounts are often excessive, and judges rarely consider defendants’ ability to pay. Many people remain in jail during the pretrial process, not because they are a danger to society or because they are a flight risk, but because they cannot afford the price of their freedom.

Ironically, Illinois statute allows judges to deny pretrial release to some individuals with a high likelihood of willful flight (Sec. 110-6.1 (7)). The elimination of cash bail means that judges have one less tool to address flight risk, running the risk of increased reliance on pretrial detention in these cases.  

The SAFE-T Act contains many beneficial reforms across the justice system, but it is not without flaws. As policymakers consider potential revisions to the law, they should proceed with a clear understanding of the purpose of cash bail and rely on evidence from empirical research. Ultimately, critics and proponents of the SAFE-T Act would benefit from coming together and forging a common-sense compromise that protects both public safety and individual liberty.  

The post The SAFE-T Act’s impact on cash bail in Illinois appeared first on Reason Foundation.

One particularly prevalent and pernicious form of regulation is occupational licensing. Occupational licensing is essentially a government-issued permission slip required to enter certain regulated occupations. The share of U.S. workers required to hold an occupational license has exploded from around 5% in 1950 to 25% in 2020. Many occupations within the home services industry––which employs nearly six million American workers––require an occupational license, but states vary widely in which occupations they license. 

In a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Harvard researcher Peter Q. Blair examined the effects of occupational licensing on consumer experiences with Angi’s HomeAdvisor, a popular digital marketplace platform for home services such as home repairs, maintenance, and remodeling tasks. In their analysis, Blair and his co-author examined a 2019 New Jersey law that created a new licensing requirement for pool contractors. The researchers also used national variation in state licensing requirements to assess the impact of licensing across a wider range of service tasks. 

The paper authors use the ‘accept rate’ to measure the impact of licensing. The authors define accept rate as “the likelihood that a customer engaged in search on a digital platform finds at least one worker who is legally permitted to perform the task given the licensing requirements for the task.” They found that New Jersey’s decision to license pool contractors reduced the accept rate by 16 percent. Their analysis of national variation in licensing requirements across a broader set of occupations revealed that licensing reduced the accept rate by 25 percent. In other words, in states where a license is required to perform a task, consumers are significantly less likely to find a qualified service provider relative to states that do not require a license for those same tasks.  

Their findings add to a growing body of literature on the subject which finds occupational licensing reduces the value of these digital marketplaces for consumers. Previous research has shown that occupational licensing’s effects on digital platforms do not result in higher consumer satisfaction or safety, only higher prices. Economists have broadly found that occupational licensing increases prices by limiting the supply of workers in regulated occupations. Typical requirements to obtain a license include education, training, and the payment of fees. These requirements act as a barrier to entry for many prospective workers, especially the poor, formerly incarcerated individuals, and other disadvantaged groups. Given the consistent finding that licensing does not meaningfully improve quality or consumer safety, the presence of licensing is a net loss for consumers. 

This new research, and other similar studies, are important to understanding the impact of government regulation on consumers. Occupational licensing is a perfect example of a well-intentioned policy gone awry; while policymakers may have had noble intentions of protecting consumers and ensuring quality, research has demonstrated that licensing often fails to achieve these goals. Instead, occupational licensing creates barriers to opportunity, raises prices, and, as this new NBER paper suggests, reduces the value created by technological innovations. These research findings further suggest that occupational licensing reform is necessary and that policymakers should be mindful of unintended consequences when establishing regulatory frameworks.  

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Unfortunately, wrongful convictions occur in death penalty cases at an alarming rate. Since 1981, 10 people in Oklahoma have been exonerated while on death row awaiting execution.

The Death Penalty Information Center maintains a database of death row exonerations in the United States. The database only includes cases where individuals were acquitted of all charges, had all their charges dismissed, or received a complete pardon based on evidence of their innocence. It provides very conservative estimates and likely understates the true number of innocent people who have been sentenced to death in America.

Death Row Exonerations Nationwide

• Since 1972, over 185 Americans have been exonerated while awaiting executions on death row.
• 68% of exonerations involved perjury or false accusations.
• 69% of exonerations involved misconduct by officials.

Death Row Exonerations in Oklahoma

• Since 1981, 10 individuals have been exonerated while on death row awaiting execution in Oklahoma.
• Six of those cases involved perjury or false accusations.
• Seven cases involved official misconduct.
• Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, has had the 4th highest number of death row exonerations among all counties in the US. Four of the five death row exonerations in Oklahoma County involved misconduct by officials.

Full document: Abolishing Oklahoma’s death penalty would be good for justice and for taxpayers

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Ohio’s Issue 1 on the November 2022 ballot requires a court to consider public safety concerns, such as the seriousness of the alleged offense, a person’s criminal record, and the likelihood a person will return to court when determining bail amount. The amendment would eliminate the Ohio Supreme Court’s current authority to determine the procedures for establishing the amount and conditions of bail.

Amendment 1 was advanced in response to an Ohio Supreme Court ruling, DuBose v. McGuffey. In that case, the state Supreme Court determined a $1.5 million bond for a Cincinnati man accused of fatally shooting a man during a robbery was too high. Through their ruling, the Ohio Supreme Court decided that only the defendant’s risk of non-appearance could be considered in determining bail amounts. This change in guidelines animated prosecutorial, judicial, and victim-rights interests to propose a constitutional change ensuring factors of public safety must once again be included in setting bail conditions.

Proponents’ Arguments

Those supporting the constitutional amendment believe courts should consider public safety, among other factors prescribed by the Ohio General Assembly, when determining bail amounts. They say these public safety factors include the seriousness of the individual’s alleged offense, the individual’s criminal history, and the likelihood of the individual reappearing in court for trial. Advocates believe Issue 1 will clearly and unambiguously guarantee courts include such factors in the financial conditions of bail. 

Proponents of Issue 1 are concerned that career criminals may exploit the justice system’s presumption of innocence to commit additional crimes, if not disappear from law enforcement, before the adjudicating process. They further citte public safety as a historical and appropriate consideration when setting reasonable bail.

Longtime Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters claimed that pretrial defendants languishing in jail is largely a myth. According to Deters: “Prosecutors are required to bring their case to trial within 90 days if a defendant is locked up. If we do not do that, the case is dismissed, unless the defendant requests a continuation.”

Additionally, Deters contends that the criminal justice system does not target those in poverty. He suggests crime is more rampant in poorer neighborhoods, requiring the need to prevent offenders from easily accessing the street prior to trial. 

Opponents Arguments

Opponents of the constitutional amendment argue the Supreme Court should maintain authority over determining bail procedures. The alternative could create a risky mosaic of policies and standards determined, no longer by the Supreme Court, but by individual judges.

Opponents of Issue 1 also suggest that low-income, non-violent offenders are often casualties of excessive bail practices, while violent offenders, such as those with access to illegal cash, have the means to buy their way out of jail. Furthermore, Sen. Cecil Thomas has argued that “good prosecutors in Ohio already know how to keep dangerous suspects in jail pending trial…They request a detention hearing and present evidence about the risk to public safety.” Thomas further noted that judges may also decide to hold a defendant without bail.

Advocating against the merit of the amendment’s language, the ACLU of Ohio suggested that “cash bail creates a two-tiered system of justice in which people who can afford their freedom go home to their families, and those who cannot are forced to suffer in jail.” The ACLU further notes that “[o]n any given day in Ohio, there are as many as 12,000 people held pretrial.”

Opponents have additionally cited a U.S. Department of Justice study of the country’s 75 largest counties, including two in Ohio, that found 33% of felony defendants were charged for at least one type of misconduct between being released and the disposition of their case. A warrant for failing to appear was issued for 23% of released defendants, and roughly 17% were arrested for a new offense. 

Discussion 

The debate around Ohio’s Issue 1 centers on the proper role and function of cash bail. The primary goal of setting bail is to ensure that defendants show up in court. Concerns about the threat that individual defendants pose to public safety are more appropriately dealt with through the decision of whether or not a defendant is eligible for bail, or pre-trial release, to begin with. The Ohio Constitution already provides for automatic pre-trial detention without bail in three circumstances:

1. When a person is charged with a capital offense “where the proof is evident or the presumption great;”
2. When a person is charged with a felony “where the proof is evident or the presumption great;”
3. When a person “poses a substantial risk of serious physical harm to any person or to the community.”

Ohio law also allows judges to consider “the nature and circumstances of the offense charged,” the “history and characteristics of the accused,” and “the nature and seriousness of the danger to any person or the community that would be posed by the person’s release” when determining whether or not an individual will be granted bail. 

These provisions already provide judges with adequate tools to detain individuals who pose a credible risk to the community. In DuBose v. McGuffey, the Supreme Court of Ohio took issue with the fact that Mr. DuBose’s bail amount was set at an excessive level with the intention of ensuring his detention pre-trial. As explained by Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael P. Donnelly, the “issue is that the amount set by the trial court was clearly calculated to be at a level that DuBose cannot possibly afford to pay,” and that the “trial court has the power to order that such defendants be held without bail, but as clearly explained in the majority opinion, the way to do that is to follow the procedure in R.C. 2937.222, not to set a bail amount so high that the defendant cannot afford it.”

Issue 1 would unnecessarily alter the procedures in setting bail in ways that threaten to undermine the legitimacy of the justice system by making an individual’s ability to pay more relevant to their pre-trial status than their likelihood of appearing in court. Existing provisions in the statute and the Ohio Constitution are sufficient to ensure that public safety is considered when determining whether or not a defendant will be detained.

Ultimately, if an individual poses a credible threat to the community, no amount of money should be sufficient to secure their release. For that reason, public safety should not be a relevant factor when setting bail amounts. Instead, factors of public safety should be considered, as is the current practice, as part of a judge’s decision regarding an individual’s eligibility for bail.

This voter guide was updated on September 30, 2022.

The post Ohio Issue 1 (2022): Determining bail amounts based on public safety appeared first on Reason Foundation.

Since 1979, 11 people in Ohio have been exonerated while on death row awaiting execution.

The Death Penalty Information Center maintains a database of death row exonerations in the United States. The database only includes cases where individuals were acquitted of all charges, had all their charges dismissed, or received a complete pardon based on evidence of their innocence. It provides very conservative estimates and likely understates the true number of innocent people who have been sentenced to death in America.

Death Row Exonerations Nationwide
• Since 1972, over 185 Americans have been exonerated while awaiting executions on death row.
• 68% of exonerations involved perjury or false accusations.
• 69% of exonerations involved misconduct by officials.

Death Row Exonerations in Ohio
• Since 1979, 11 individuals have been exonerated while on death row awaiting execution in Ohio.
• Nine of those cases involved perjury or false accusations.
• Ten cases involved official misconduct.
• In Ohio, for every 6.2 executions, one innocent person on death row has been exonerated
• On average, exonerees in Ohio had been on death row for 20 years.
• The longest sentence served by a death row exoneree was 39 years.

Full document: Abolishing Ohio’s death penalty would be good for justice and for taxpayers

The post Abolishing Ohio’s death penalty would be good for justice and for taxpayers appeared first on Reason Foundation.

The Nevada top-five ranked choice voting initiative, Nevada Question 3 on the Nov. 2022 ballot, would change state primary elections from a closed system in which only party members are allowed to vote in their respective parties’ primaries to a top-two open primary where anyone can vote for any candidate of any party.

The initiative would also change the process by which candidates from each primary advance to the general election. Currently, the candidates receiving the most votes in each party’s primary advance to the general election—one candidate represents each party. Under the initiative, the top five candidates overall would advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. 

The initiative would also establish rank-choice voting in the primaries and the general election. Under rank-choice voting, voters rank their preferred candidates rather than selecting one candidate to receive their votes. If no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated. That candidate’s votes are then redistributed based on voters’ ranked preferences. This process is repeated until one candidate receives a majority.

Proponents’ Arguments For

Proponents of Nevada Question 3 argue that voters should have more choices and that non-party-affiliated voters should have a voice in the primary process. As noted by the Institute for Political Innovation, more than 35 percent of Nevada voters are unable to vote in a primary because they are registered as independent or non-partisan, and “many more [feel] under-represented by their respective party.” 

Supporters of open primary systems generally argue that closed primaries result in polarization because, in closed primaries, candidates are competing for the vote of a partisan minority. Closed primary systems exclude voters who are not members of a major political party from participating in taxpayer-funded elections. The outcome of primary elections is therefore decided by a relatively small group of partisan voters. They suggest that open primaries could result in moderation because it would require candidates to appeal to all voters, not just members of their own political party.

Supporters of ranked-choice voting argue that it allows voters to choose their most-preferred candidate first without worrying about wasted votes or spoiler effects. This would lend voters more choice.  Supporters of the top-five component of the initiative further argue that allowing the top-five candidates to proceed to the general election would provide voters with more choice. According to Sondra Cosgrove, professor of history at the College of Southern Nevada, “We don’t want just two people moving forward from the primary to the general election. We want five people, because oftentimes when you look at the people who move forward, it’s just the people with the most money.”

Opponent’s Arguments Against

Opponents of Nevada Question 3 argue that it would make voting too complicated and that voters could be confused by the new system. According to Emily Persaud-Zamora, executive director of Silver State Voices:

Ranked choice voting makes casting a ballot more time-consuming, more complicated, and more confusing for voters … It will inevitably lead to increased errors. Ranked choice vote ballots are significantly more likely to be thrown out and uncounted because of those voters’ mistakes, ultimately disenfranchising more voters because of an overly complex and burdensome process.

Opponents of Nevada Question 3 and open primaries also argue that political parties are private organizations and should be allowed to determine the process by which their candidates are selected. Building a coalition of like-minded voters and nominating candidates that align with their preferences are among the core functions of political parties. Partisan primaries are an important part of that function. In their view, open primaries would weaken the ability of parties to nominate the candidates that most clearly align with their members’ beliefs. Moreover, they argue that allowing members of the opposing party to participate in their primary process could create opportunities for sabotage.

Discussion 

While expanding voter choice and allowing non-partisan voters to play a more significant role in elections are laudable goals, it is not clear that open primaries and top-five election processes are a good means for achieving those goals. Ranked choice voting, on the other hand, is an effective strategy for offering voters more choices. Because ranked-choice voting alleviates concerns about wasted votes and spoiler effects, such ballots also lend more opportunity for minor party candidates. 

Regarding open primaries, political parties are fundamentally private organizations with the right to set their own rules for nominating candidates. To infringe on that right is to violate the freedom of association. No matter how large or powerful the two major parties may be, the government has no role in determining the process for their primary elections. That limitation does not prevent non-partisan voters from vocalizing their dissatisfaction with major-party nominees. Better alternatives for including non-partisan voters in the electoral process include allowing minor-party candidates to participate in debates and redrawing gerrymandered districts. 

Overall, the Nevada Top-Five Ranked Choice Voting Initiative has some laudable goals and contains some ideas worthy of consideration. However, mandating open primaries and a top-five system both conflict with other long-established goals of primary elections.

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