Oct. 17, 2010
According to a new publication just out, “Many states are imposing new and often onerous “user fees” on individuals with criminal convictions. Yet far from being easy money, these fees impose severe – and often hidden – costs on communities, taxpayers, and indigent people convicted of crimes. They create new paths to prison for those unable to pay their debts and make it harder to find employment and housing as well to meet child support obligations.”
Published by the New York University Law School’s Brennan School of Justice, Criminal Justice Debt: A Barrier To Reentry, by Alicia Bannon, Mitali Nagrecha, Rebekah Diller, presents a muti-layered indictment of the heightenned state intererest in extracting monetary penance from offenders reenterring society with no resources or ability to to pay. An important work that will add much to the debate about what encumbrances are fair and even constitutional upon release into society.
