Juvenile justice agencies often impose fees on justice-involved families to recover administrative costs. To examine whether eliminating these fees would lead to significant alleviation of the families’ financial burden, this study applies a rigorous causal inference approach to data on 2,401 youth placed on probation before and after the fee repeal in Alameda County in 2016.

ABSTRACT: Juvenile justice agencies often impose fees on parents and guardians to offset the cost of their child’s legal representation, detention, and supervision. Increasingly, advocates are calling for fee repeal, to mitigate the costs and harms of various monetary sanctions. But is removing fees likely to have an appreciable effect on the financial burden families carry? Applying a rigorous causal inference approach to data on 2,401 youth placed on probation before and after a fee repeal in Alameda County, we estimate that the likelihood of experiencing any financial sanction was 22.2% lower post-repeal compared to pre-repeal, and the total amount of sanctions was $1,583 (or 70%) lower. These benefits did not depend on families’ socioeconomic status. Our analysis indicates that fee repeal can be a powerful policy lever for doing less financial harm to families during their children’s terms of probation. This study provides empirical evidence that helps bolster a growing national effort to eliminate juvenile fees.

Chambers, J., Martin, K. D., & Skeem, J. L. (2021). Effect of juvenile justice fee repeal on financial sanctions borne by families. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3923878 

POLICY BRIEF: Eliminating fees in the Alameda County juvenile justice system meaningfully reduced financial burdens on families

WORKING PAPER: Effect of Juvenile Justice Fee Repeal on Financial Sanctions Borne by Families

PRESS RELEASE: Alameda County Reduced Significant Financial Burdens on Families by Eliminating Fees in Juvenile Probation