email : Webview : NEW Research: The Hidden Court Fee that Penalizes Poverty

Click here to read the new Civil Assessment report!

Stephanie Jeffcoat was living in a tent in Anaheim in 2019. One day, while crossing the street, she was cited for jaywalking. When she could not afford to pay the ticket, the court charged her a $300 fee, which more than doubled the cost of the ticket.

This $300 fee, called the civil assessment, is a type of poverty penalty charged to people who, like Stephanie, miss a deadline to pay or appear in court and can exponentially increase the amount someone owes. For example, a $35 fine for running a stop sign increases over 8.5 times with the addition of a civil assessment. Courts penalize up to one million people with this late fee each year, driving poor Californians deeper into poverty.

This month, the Debt Free Justice California Coalition released a new, groundbreaking report, "Civil Assessments: The Hidden Court Fee that Penalizes Poverty." The Financial Justice Project is proud to be a co-author of the report and on the steering committee of the Coalition.

The report was covered by the Sacramento Bee and San Francisco Chronicle. The Financial Justice Project has called for the elimination of civil assessments in the Los Angeles Times and CalMatters.

The Debt Free Justice California Coalition conducted surveys with more than 200 people with recent traffic citations. The survey speaks powerfully to the problems and limitations of civil assessments.

“Paying this late fee would mean that I have to choose between paying off this fee or paying rent.”
– Survey Respondent

Click here to read the full Civil Assessment report!

Click here to read the 2-page report summary!

Key findings from the report include:

Civil assessments simply do not work. There is no evidence that charging $300 gets people to pay their tickets.

Most people cannot afford to pay civil assessments. Of people surveyed, 68% could not afford to pay the $300 hidden fee. Courts charge people hundreds of millions of dollars each year in civil assessments, but the collection rates are low. In San Francisco, the collection rate for civil assessments in criminal court is just 13.5 percent.

Black and Brown people are disproportionately punished by high add-on fees like the civil assessment. Black and Brown Californians are more likely to be pulled over, and more likely to be ticketed. One California study found that Black people made up just 7 percent of the population, but over 16 percent of all stops.

Courts are incentivized to impose these fees to cover gaps in their own funding, shifting court costs onto those who can least afford to pay. In fiscal year 2019-20, courts collected more than $96 million from civil assessments, more than $54 million of which they retained as revenue.

We must repeal civil assessments and discharge all outstanding debt. Civil assessments are ineffective and disproportionately punish poor Black and Brown Californians. Rather than rely on extreme back-end penalties that do not work and drive people into debt, our system of justice should invest in proven front-end tools, such as sending text message reminders, that make it easier for people to resolve tickets.

Thank you to the Debt Free Justice Coalition for collaborating on this report, as well as the many people, volunteers, and advocates who shared their experiences with civil assessments.

Yours in Financial Justice,
Anne, Michelle, and Shawn

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