Factoring in Health: How Physical and Mental Health Influence System Actors Perceptions of Ability to Pay Legal Financial Obligations (LFOs)

• In Event: Beyond the Debt: Qualitative Insights into Legal Financial Burdens and the Ongoing Quest for Reform

Abstract

Objectives/Specific Aims. Past literature indicates that criminal justice system involved populations have high rates of both poor mental and physical health and that these health problems can negatively impact the ability to repay legal finical obligations (LFOs); however, we know little about how perceptions of health problems influence the assessment of ability to pay LFOs by system actors. To address this gap, we investigate how perceptions of health problems influence the behavior of system actors when levying and assessing LFOs for defendants. Data/Methods. We use ethnographic and interview data from Georgia state courts to explore if health status is used by system actors when they make determinations of ability to pay. Findings. Through ethnographic and interview data, we find clear patterns of disparity between how physical and mental health status is used by system actors in their evaluation of ability to pay LFOs. Here, we found that system actors were more willing to give leniency in payment for physical health problems than mental health problems. Implications. Research on how health status is used by system actors when assessing ability to pay LFOs is limited. These findings add to previous knowledge by specifically considering the differences between how physical health and mental health status impact these decisions by system actors.

Authors

• Timothy G. Edgemon, University of Birmingham

• Brittany Martin, University of Rhode Island