Revenue or Justice: An Inquiry into the Role of Money in Punishment

• In Event: Roundtable: Rethinking Pretrial Practice and Building a National Research Agenda for the Front End of the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

As evidence emerges about the expanding use of Criminal Justice Financial Obligations (CJFO’s) and their myriad deleterious effects, including modern debtor’s prisons and criminal justice debt as a de facto punishment, there has yet to be an assessment of alternative ways of using money in punishment. Rather the discussion tends to bifurcate between some version of abolition and maintaining the status quo. Abolition would eliminate the utility of CJFO’s (punitive effect at minimal cost to the state), while the current system produces increasingly unconscionable consequences for individuals, their families, and even the larger penal apparatus. By drawing on relevant empirical research, this article articulates the need for research and policy innovations that both extract the benefits from CJFO’s and minimize their costs.

Author

• Karin Martin, John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY Graduate Center