Two legislators join the podcast to discuss why they sponsored legislation to abolish fees and fines for juveniles in the court system, and why those changes were needed.
Cities, states, courts and district attorneys’ offices levy fines and fees on defendants at nearly every stage of the criminal justice system. Fines and fees are often used to finance essential functions of the court and as a deterrent for people from committing future offenses.
In recent years, critics have argued that fines and fees used to fund the judiciary create a perverse incentive for judges to impose more fees. Another target for critics are jurisdictions that use criminal justice fees as revenue generators. For those with few resources, fines and fees stemming from traffic tickets and criminal convictions can perpetuate a cycle of poverty.
A significant state legislative trend has been to limit the number and amount of fines and fees in the justice system or abolish them altogether.
Our two guests on this episode both sponsored successful legislation in their states to abolish fees and fines for juveniles. Rep. Sean Lynn, a Democrat from Delaware, and Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, a Republican from Montana, talked about why they got involved in this policy area and the changes they want to see in their states.
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Ed: Hello and welcome to “Our American States,” a podcast from the National Conference of State Legislatures. I’m your host, Ed Smith.
SL: Prior to 244, you could take someone’s driver’s license away for failure to pay fines and fees which was also one of those things that I found kind of to be counterintuitive because if you can’t go to work, how are you supposed to pay fines and fees.
Ed: That was Representative Sean Lynn, a Democrat from Delaware and one of my guests on the program. Also on the show is Representative Kerri Seekins-Crowe a Republican from Montana. Both representatives sponsored legislation to get rid of fees and fines at the court system in their states imposed on juveniles.
Cities, states, courts and district attorneys’ offices levy fines and fees on defendants at nearly every stage of the criminal justice system. Fines are essentially a monetary punishment, while a person might have to pay a fee for things like court costs. Fines and fees are often used to finance essential functions of the court and as a deterrent for people from committing future offenses. Some people believe that those convicted of crimes rather than taxpayers should bear responsibility for the increasing costs of running our justice system.
But in recent years, critics have argued that fines and fees used to fund the judiciary create a perverse incentive for judges to impose more fees. Another target for critics are jurisdictions such as Ferguson, Mo., that used criminal justice fees as revenue generators. For those with few resources, fines and fees stemming from traffic tickets and criminal convictions can perpetuate a cycle of poverty. Some opponents argue the impartiality, fairness and equality of the justice system are called into question when punishment can be determined by financial status.
A significant state legislative trend has been to limit the number and amount of fines and fees in the justice system or abolish them altogether. Lynn and Seekins-Crowe talked about why they got involved in this policy and the changes they want to see in their states.
Ed: Representative Lynn, thanks for coming on the podcast.
SL: Hey good morning. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Ed: Well, I wonder if you could start by telling listeners maybe a little bit about your background and how you came to focus on the policy around fees and fines in our court system.
SL: Sure. Just kind of by way of background. My name is Sean from Dover, Del. Born and raised here in Dover, Del., except for about an 11-year period where I lived in Manhattan in New York City where I went to college and law school. And between college and law school was a public-school teacher in the Bronx for about four years. And really, it’s that combined experience of being a public-school teacher in the Bronx and then being a lawyer that really kind of gave me insight and interest into criminal justice reform and the criminal justice system both here and Delaware and then kind of just on a larger paradigm across the country.
Ed: You sponsored legislation in 2022 House Bill 244 there in Delaware. When that became law, it made Delaware a national leader in reframing how states look at fines and fees in the justice system. And I wonder what the situation in Delaware looked like before the law was passed and how it affected how you structured the legislation.
SL: So, the kind of the lay of the land there before the bill went into effect was that juveniles could be assessed fines and fees which is kind of an interesting and novel approach given that you know typically juveniles don’t have any source of revenue so accordingly, you know, the punitive nature of fines and fees for failure to collect or failure to pay you know being assessed against the juvenile who really is dependent entirely upon their guardians or their parents to pay these fines or fees. Obviously, a huge problem. So, before the bill went into effect, fines and fees could be assessed against children. The other kind of component was that prior to 244, you could take someone’s driver’s license away for failure to pay fines and fees which was also one of those things that I found kind of to be counter intuitive because if you can’t go to work, how are you supposed to pay fines and fees. And then just all the other result and effects that flow from that like you know you can’t take your kids to school or you can’t get their kids where they are supposed to go. You can’t go to work. All of the things that flow from not having a driver’s license. And then, obviously, further criminal or at least traffic violations from driving without a driver’s license. And then there was just a staggering amount of fines and fees that were in place that could convert a very minor infraction into a very major financial burden.
What we did was we created kind of a workgroup to look at this. So, we did take some immediate steps, but then we also created a workgroup to kind of look at this on a larger scale.
Ed: These fines and fees which I guess are technically referred to as legal financial obligations are pretty common in the justice system and I wonder if you could talk about some specific sanctions, monetary sanctions, and why it is important to distinguish between a fine and a fee which we kind of group together here, but they are two separate things.
SL: I think that lawmakers, municipalities, anyone who is engaged in this field kind of blends the term fine and fee together and they are not the same thing. So, fee is like a fee for a service. So, you apply for a business license, you pay a fee. A fine is something punitive in nature that you didn’t do things the right way and we are going to fine you. A lot of individuals and a lot of those within the government, criminal justice system, municipalities conflate the two. So, the first is kind you know in legislator’s minds kind of just separating them out and saying this is a fee. This is a fine. Here is the distinction between the two and why they can’t be intermingled. So that was kind of the first step along that pathway is just kind of making clear delineations about what one was and wasn’t.
Ed: This bill passed even though it had a significant effect on state revenues and needless to say that’s not the easiest thing in the world to get through a legislature. And I wonder what sort of persuasive talents you brought to get your colleagues to go along with this.
SL: So, I think that the first part of that journey that I took with my colleague Senator Darious Brown, my Senate colleague, who assisted with this. Some of it is just so common sense that if you just explain it to people, they are willing to along with you, like children shouldn’t be assessed fines or fees. Driver’s licenses shouldn’t be revoked. The aggregate kind of unpaid fines and fees debt in Delaware was $79.5 million, which equated you know with we have a relatively small state here. It was about $104 per adult Delaware resident. I think that the narrative and it was really a combined effort between myself, Senator Brown and then the advocates who were attempting to end debtor’s prison, which is really kind of what we made it akin to. It made it easier for people to get back on their feet after becoming involved in the justice system. It ensured that people trying to repay these debts didn’t lose their ability to drive to work or earn wages or these types of things. So, part of it was just a very common-sense approach.
Look at these staggering amounts of uncollected debt. Look at the proximate effect on all of the folks within our state and really are we doing more harm than good. And I think that that narrative echoed by myself and Senator Brown and the advocates really resonated.
Ed: Well as I understand it from some other reading, I did on this, a lot of that money will never be collected anyway.
TM: 8:45
SL: You are never going to see it. Correct. For some that may have been a bit of hard pill to swallow, but there is a reality associated with it that some of this is just uncollectable.
Ed: When you look at it now, two years later, what’s the most significant change the bill has brought about?
SL: First, before the enactment of the bill, Delaware ranked 47 out of 51 states and D.C. in the fines and fee index created by the National Center for Access to Justice, which is located at Fordham Law School. We’ve now moved up to 23rd. You know that in and of itself just kind of a measurable index by which to gage our progress. That’s hopeful. I still think there is a lot of work to be done. But really on a more granular scale just looking at the people that this was able to help. People who were able to get their driver’s licenses back for the first time. The look on parents’ faces when their children weren’t being assessed fines and fees at the level before. But we still have kind of a lot of work to do so we are still at 23. We really need to go up on that index and bring everybody else kind of along with us I think is the goal.
Ed: Along those lines, why don’t we go back to the study group that you referred to earlier. What are some of the findings and recommendations coming out of this. And I guess, this is the sort of future looking portion of this legislation.
SL: What the working group did was we created a working group to review the impact that court imposed financial obligations that have on defendants and victims and then make recommendations to promote access fairness, transparency in the imposition and collection of court imposed financial obligations. What the workgroup did is we met for months. Significant group of stakeholders, Delaware court system, the advocates, other legislators and we suggested things that we needed to do in addition to what had already been done in HB 244. And what we came up with was five more bills that are going to be coming forward to kind of clean up and fix what was left undone. So those were the ultimate recommendations of the workgroup is here’s what other and further steps that we need to take to fix this.
You know one of which is just kind of a clean-up bill that looks back at HB 244 and says what do we need to do to fix some of this stuff that we should have gotten right the first go around, but we just didn’t know enough frankly. This is all kind of an experiment right. Part of that is that we are going to eliminate old debts from fees that were eliminating by 244 so we got to go back clerically and now kind of clear all of those debts. And those include kind of the public defender fee and the supervision fee. So, we were collecting a fee for the public defender, which in Delaware we call like the Office of Defense Services now, but we were never actually channeling that money to the public defender so defendants were paying for a public defender fee, but that money wasn’t going to the Office of Defense Services. So, we are going to get rid of that. We are going to get rid of the supervision fee and then we are going to look at kind of the total fiscal impact of all of it.
And then there are four other bills that were kind of thought up by the workgroup which are in the process of now being drafted and introduced with the thought that we are going to try to get them done by June.
Ed: Well, I think it’s not uncommon to pass legislation and then realize well after it goes into effect, we realize there are a few things that still need to be sorted out for it so this seems pretty common sense. Let me close here with asking you what advice you’d give lawmakers in other states who might want to get involved in this policy area.
LS: I think that my first piece of advice was ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table along the discussions. So, you would be shocked at how wide the net is for an issue like fines and fees. To me that includes representatives from the court system. Those from and this was the most important to me, those from the impacted communities as well as advocates for fines and fees reform. The police and law enforcement realm. To some extent in Delaware, it included firemen and emergency systems because we would put like an ambulance fee onto some of the fines and fees. So, you know some of these funds went to fund local ambulance services or local fire services. The best advice I could give is you got to really look at the fines and fees first. And regrettably lawmakers use criminal fines and fees sometimes as a way to sidestep taxation right. They will say you know we can generate fines and fees based upon a community that not a lot of people care about. People that have had contact with the criminal justice system and it’s an easy way to sidestep real financial and fiscal responsibility by kind of shifting it to this realm. So, it encapsulates again like fire systems, emergency systems, at least here in Delaware.
Other things that you wouldn’t think had a nexus to criminal fines and fees. So, I think the first step is looking at your individual states and actually find the fees. Pull out the code. Look at them. Go talk to the courts and the judges that are imposing them and say tell me what all the fines and fees are and then casting your net wide enough that no one is left out of that dialogue. Better to include them the first go round than realize after you’ve passed something that you missed someone. And I think that’s the biggest lesson that we learned.
Ed: Yeah, I think that that is absolutely true is going out and getting all of the stakeholders you can possibly find involved. Well, representative, thank you so much for walking through this and what you’ve done in Delaware and I wish you a good day and take care.
SL: Thank you, Ed. I really appreciate it. Thank you for the time.
TM: 15:10
Ed: I’ll be right back after this short break with Representative Kerri Seekins-Crowe of Montana to discuss legislation she sponsored in her state.
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TM: 17:10
Ed: Representative, thanks for coming on the show.
KC: Thank you so much. It’s my honor.
Ed: I wonder if you could start by telling our listeners a little about your background and how you came to focus on this policy around fees and fines in the court system.
KC: I have just spent two sessions in the Montana House of Representatives. I represent house district 43 which is in Billings, Montana. I don’t think that I had any intention of going into the direction of DOC or dealing with re-entry or dealing with anything that had to deal with those folks who were justice involved. But it now probably takes up a majority of my time and I’m thrilled. I’m thrilled to be here. I’ve had a lot to learn. I have been saying that three of the most complicated things that I deal with on a regular basis here in Montana within the legislation are alcohol licensing, education funding and then how the Department of Corrections works. A lot of the youth services go through the Department of Justice, but they are still very much intertwined together. And so, my first session, I ran a bill. It was a pretty complicated bill. It actually gave me. It kind of dipped my toes into the water and I realized after that that as a legislator, we are citizen legislators here in Montana, that I really needed to learn a lot. We all do. There’s no way we can be experts on anything and so I just I told any group I said if you want to invite me to come visit anything a business, Department of Corrections entity, I will go. And I got a lot of invites and I went. So I went to prisons, trade mint, youth facilities across the state and if any of ya’ll have been in Montana, it’s a large state. And I have been to a lot of these facilities now multiple times.
And I’m not going to even pretend like I know everything yet. I certainly do not. But I have learned over time over the last couple of years to ask better questions. To be more involved in perspective. What does it look like from the perspective of a mother of a victim or the mother of somebody who is just as involved. Or the prison guard. Or the person who the activist who is trying to make the facilities better for those who are inside of the facilities so that they get out better. Right now, I’m really focused in those areas having those conversations, understanding the perspective of the victim as well as the perpetrator and understanding what happens if we are dealing with folks who have had trauma in their lives or they just were wrong place; wrong time or have had really bad influences in their life.
Second session went back and sponsored a few other bills, but have been very, very actively involved in helping folks that when they get out of prison that we help them get out better because chaos and crime are very rampant here in Montana right now and we need to fix that.
Ed: I have to say for all the many, many legislators that I have talked to that is a message that comes through loud and clear, that you have to go out and really understand these issues by talking to all the stakeholders and do a lot more listening than you do talking, so that sounds very much in line with I think a lot of other people’s experiences.
KC: I realized very quickly when I got into the legislature that I didn’t know what I was doing and that a lot of times I know I’m not the smartest person at the table, but I’m going to sit at the table and I’m going to learn from those folks who have the experience who have lived the experience and who are the experts in those areas. And then I hope I make better policy and I hope I make better decisions when I’m voting red and green as a legislator.
Ed: Well, I think you are certainly taking the right approach to it. Let me ask you this. So, as I understand it about a half a million children go through our juvenile court system every year. Talking here about fines and fees in the legal system, legal/financial obligations, the truth is that these folks don’t have any money so this falls on their parents or their guardians. And I wonder how that shaped your thinking about this issue.
TM: 21:29
KC: Well again coming into this, I don’t think I really understood the issue, but as I was invited to go visit some of the youth facilities in the state or invited to listen to parents or actually had parents call me and say we are struggling. Our youth are in dire need of help. We don’t have the toolbox to help them. Can you help. And of course, my answer at that point is no, but I will figure out where the help exists, where it lies. And so, when I was asked to carry this bill, a lot of things I mean politics are political. You can quote me on that. But there are a lot of things within politics that are not political and I love common sense solutions and this just seemed to be one of those common-sense solutions that it was brought to my attention. It was not something I was aware of and so basically what I had to do was bring it to the attention of my colleagues and say this is an area where we’ve got fines and fees. We as a state are lagging. All the states around us actually have gotten rid of the fines and fees. Let’s take a look at it ourselves. Let’s see what we can do better and that’s how. It was just brought to my attention and I decided that I should be the person to go ahead and carry it.
Ed: So let me ask you about that. This is House Bill 500 that you sponsored in 2023 that abolishes fines and fees in juvenile court. Tell us why you decided. You ended up being the sponsor. Of course, other people were involved, I’m sure. Why did you decide to be the face of this bill?
KC: Because I see our families in chaos straightforward and there’s a lot of different areas, but I felt like this would be one area that if we took the burden that these young folks are actually placing on their parents right now. I think some of it is trauma based. Some of it is just bad decisions. But if we took that burden off of them then families could be much better suited to help their children. They could much better suited to get them the help that they need and not have the worry of these fines and fees that are there now. Of course, this does not take away the accountability that can be placed on the youth. This does not take away the judge’s options that they can still have restitution. The community service. The victim can still be made whole by the court. So, youth can still be held accountable and I think parents want that. They do want the youth to be held accountable, but they themselves do not need to be punished as they are trying to find solutions for their children.
Ed: Yeah, that’s a great point I think important to make that this is not saying that there are no consequences for their behavior. Talk a little bit more about what the specifics are. What exactly did the bill do?
KC: The bill impacted three things in the youth court system. It eliminated the fines which they are rarely imposed anyway on the justice involved folks and the families. It also eliminated fees. And this was important because a lot of times fees could vary from county to county and it didn’t have a fiscal impact to the state since they are levied and collected by counties. But also, it eliminated the cost of care contributions which are fees imposed on families when a young person is housed in court mandated residential care outside of the home. That was very important because we are not doing that for adults. Why were we doing that for youth. Also, families would find that the court would impose this sentence, but then they didn’t have the way to pay for that and it was causing a lot of stress, a lot of chaos in our families. And so therefore, they could get the help therapeutic or correctional facilities, but were just not paying those fees at that point.
Ed: Who is the population most affected by this legislation? Do you have a notion of how many young people were affected, how many families that kind of thing.
KC: I do not know exactly because that’s going to vary year by year. I do know that it was about $300,000 every year give or take of course depending on what was going on. The DOC was trying to collect every year from these parents. Maybe they could get $200,000. So, we were spending money and not collecting all of that. This hopefully not just saved money, but it also took off some of the stress off of families so that the focus could be really where it needed to be in getting youth and families the help that they need.
TM: 26:01
Ed: HB 500 almost passed the house unanimously and as I understand it did pass the Senate unanimously. And I wonder why you think that eliminating fees for young people in the system had so much bipartisan support?
KC: Well funny story. It actually did not get through committee the first time. Well, I’ll take some of the blame. Maybe do a little bit better job explaining to my colleagues what was actually going on there. And help them understand what the impact was because I think at first maybe I didn’t do a good enough job explaining to them there was still accountability. There was still restitution that was expected of the youth so that we could make sure that victims would be made fully whole which I mean it is kind of an interesting terminology there, but. So, we had to revive it. Bring it back out, but hopefully at this point I did a much better job explaining it. Explaining it on the floor. Getting bipartisan support behind this bill because of course once again it is perception and it can be perception of the legislators and who was speaking the loudest and I realized at that point this is one of my bills. I needed to be the loudest voice speaking and I can do that.
Ed: Well, I think that almost any legislator would tell you that it’s an educational process when you carry for your first bill and that not a lot of bills make it through the first time around. They often have to be rewritten and revised. A little bit more spade work needs to be done before they are ready so. Sounds like you actually were pretty successful on that. As we wind up, what would you tell lawmakers in other states who are interested in this topic and might want to get involved in actually advancing policy.
KC: I would tell other lawmakers to go visit every facility that you can across the state and what that looks like. Have the conversation with not only your prisons, but your jails, your pre-release. That’s what we have here in Montana. Your youth facilities. Treatment facilities. Your sheriffs. Your police departments. People who have been justice involved. People who are wardens. I’ve had those conversations so that I can better understand so that I can better make these kinds of decisions. Talk with people on both sides of the aisle where they are coming from. I sponsored this bill working with an organization with which I usually don’t work because we are so far on opposite ends of a lot of issues, but I think that they realized we do have a majority. We are ah although I do not believe this issue here is political. But we do have a majority Republicans, a super majority in fact last session. And they realized after my first session and how passionate I was becoming about working in the corrections area that I was a good person to carry this bill. There was a place that we could agree, argue, come up with solutions that really fit and I don’t want to say bipartisan. I want to say Montana. That fit Montana and fit our families and our youth so that we do have families that are stronger so that we do have safter communities and that’s where we did work together. I would work with them again on this kind of a bill. I mean there’s a lot of bills I would vote against and work against, but this was one that we worked together. So, I would encourage other legislators to learn as much as you can. Talk to other states. Find out what they are doing that is working well. Get your colleagues involved. A lot of times now when I am visiting those facilities, I invite my colleagues so that they can see what I’ve seen so that they can have these conversations so that they can learn to ask better questions like I have done. I’m sure there’s other things out there that you can do even much better than I’ve done. I probably came at it backwards where I spent a session first and then went out and learned a lot for my second session. It is an area that I think is very important. It impacts everything from workforce to families to public safety, economic development and we have to take it seriously when we are voting yes or no on a lot of these bills. And I hope that what I bring to the table so that my colleagues when they are voting on one of my bills, they understand the amount of work that has gone into it and the passion and what my end game really is and that’s helping these folks be better when they are getting out of the prison system or helping these families dealing with the chaos in their homes.
Ed: Well, here at NCSL, we always love to hear people working with unusual allies so it’s great to hear that you were able to find folks there in the state to get this Montana solution accomplished. Thank you so much representative. I really appreciate your time.
KC: My pleasure and I’ve always enjoyed working with NCSL so thank you very much.
Ed: I’ve been talking with Representative Sean Lynn of Delaware and Kerri Seekins-Crowe of Montana about state legislative efforts to reform court-imposed fees and fines. Thanks for listening.
TM: 31:27
You can check out all the podcasts from the National Conference of State Legislatures by searching for NCSL podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast “Our American States” dives into some of the most challenging public policy issues facing legislators. On “Across the Aisle” host Kelley Griffin tells stories of bipartisanship. Also check out our special series “Building Democracy” on the history of legislatures.