In too many places, there is a high price for access to justice. Across the country, state and local governments impose fines as punishment for everything from traffic and municipal code violations to felonies. Courts then tax people with fees, surcharges, and other assessments that fund law enforcement, the court system, and other government operations. Fines and fees for even a single incident can add up to thousands of dollars. People unable to pay these sums immediately may face steep penalties, including additional fees, driver’s license suspensions, revocation of voting rights, and even incarceration.

Fines and fees can keep people in a cycle of poverty, causing people to lose their jobs, their homes, and sometimes their children. The same monetary sanction that trivially inconveniences an affluent person can prevent a low-income family from paying the rent. In fact, fines and fees are often set without regard to a person’s actual financial situation. In short, they create a two-tiered system, placing justice out of reach for millions of people, including a disproportionate number of people of color.

The Fines and Fees Justice Index

Recognizing that fines and fees are an engine for economic and racial inequity, NCAJ convened a task force of experts from around the country to identify best policies to protect people’s rights. In all, NCAJ identified 17 policies that are critical to creating a fairer legal system that does not criminalize poverty and that respects people’s rights.

In 2020—and again in 2022—NCAJ researched state and local laws in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. and graded the jurisdictions on a scale of 0 to 100 according to how their policies measure up. The policy benchmarks are weighted according to their relative importance. A state that met all of our policy benchmarks would earn a score of 100; a state that met none of them would earn a score of 0.  

In assessing the performance of the states, we went to great lengths to acknowledge and credit good practice, even where it falls short our 17 benchmarks. In many cases, we gave states partial credit for policy approaches that represent progress relative to the dismal norms that prevail in many jurisdictions. To read more about the selection of the benchmarks and methodology, click here.

The Findings

In short, no state did well. Only two states received more than 50 out of a possible 100 points and no state received a passing score. What’s more, the Fines and Fees Justice Index measures only laws on the books, not practice on the ground. In many cases, practices fall short of even the low bar set by the laws and court rulings.

There is, however, some cause for optimism. Almost every policy contained in the primary benchmarks has been adopted in at least one state, meaning that states seeking to do better need not invent new policies whole cloth. They can simply look to what other states are doing to adopt more rights-respecting policies. And in the two short years between when we began researching fines and fees policies and when we released the 2022 update, more than a dozen states took steps to eliminate fees, end harsh punishments for failure to pay, or otherwise improve their fines and fees policies. There is tremendous momentum for reform.

Explore our findings in detail below, including individual reports for all 50 states and Washington, D.C. To see how each state scored on every benchmark and for a list of citations, download the fines & fees data set. 

To learn more about how the Justice Index can help drive fines and fees reform in your state, download Using the Fines and Fees Justice Index Toolkit (pdf).