Fines and Fees
The criminal justice system relies on financial sanctions to encourage behavior change, but
there is little evidence to support that fines and fees encourage law-abiding behaviors. Fines
and fees primarily fund government operations and they are especially devastating for
low-income communities, creating more barriers to successful community supervision and
criminalizing poverty. Individuals who are unable to satisfy their LFOs are at risk for
additional monetary sanctions, only pushing them further into a cycle of debt, making it
more difficult to meet all conditions of community supervision.

Finally, we detailed key portions of the NCAJ Fine and Fee Index. Apart from the Index
domain-specific recommendations, common themes emerged from the literature, which
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