This week on Everyday Injustice we have NCAJ (National Center for Access to Justice) Policy Director Lauren Jones talking about their work on behalf of criminal justice reform.

“NCAJ uses data, research and policy analysis to expose how the justice system fails to stand up for equal justice- and all too often, functions as a source of oppression.”

We talk about their creation of the Justice Index and look at policy areas like fines and fees, where just about every state is failing to produce actual equity and justice.

Listen as Lauren Jones highlights how states have failed to provide justice in numerous areas.

Everyday Injustice Podcast Episode 181: NCAJ on Failures of the Criminal Legal System

This week on Everyday Injustice we feature legendary attorney Stephen Bright and James Kwak who just released a new book, “The Fear of Too Much Justice.”

Bryan Stevenson writes, “An urgently needed analysis of our collective failure to confront and overcome racial bias and bigotry, the abuse of power, and the multiple ways in which the death penalty’s profound unfairness requires its abolition. You will discover Steve Bright’s passion, brilliance, dedication, and tenacity when you read these pages.” 

In The Fear of Too Much Justice, “legendary death penalty lawyer Stephen B. Bright and legal scholar James Kwak offer a heart-wrenching overview of how the criminal legal system fails to live up to the values of equality and justice.”

Listen as Everyday Injustice discusses wrongful convictions, racial inequities, mental illness, the trial penalty and underfinanced indigent defense and much more.

Everyday Injustice Podcast Episode 206: Bright and Kwak Discuss ‘Fear of Too Much Justice’

The latest episode of Everyday Injustice takes on one of the least understood but most destructive aspects of the criminal legal system: fines and fees. Host David Greenwald speaks with Lillian Patil and Tanisha Pire of the Fines and Fees Justice Center about their new report, Imposing Instability: How Court Fines and Fees Destabilize Government Budgets and Criminalize Those Who Cannot Pay. Their research exposes how state and local governments across the country rely on fines and fees not only as a tool of punishment, but also as a hidden and unstable source of revenue.

Patil and Pire explain how fines and fees are imposed at nearly every stage of the system—from traffic tickets and public defender applications to probation supervision—and how this creates what they describe as a “hidden tax” on low-income communities. Over five years, courts in just 24 states imposed nearly $14 billion in fines and fees. Yet much of this debt is uncollectible because the people charged cannot pay, leaving families destabilized and governments still facing budget gaps.

The conversation highlights the human toll: people losing driver’s licenses, facing arrest warrants, being pushed into cycles of debt, and even incarceration because they lacked the ability to pay. As Pire notes, courts rarely conduct ability-to-pay assessments, meaning people are penalized not for their actions but for their poverty. Patil points out that governments often spend more trying to collect this money than they ever receive, making the practice both unjust and fiscally unsound.

Despite these harms, reform has been slow. Some states, like California, have eliminated license suspensions and discharged uncollectible debt, but many continue to depend on fines and fees even as revenues decline. Patil and Pire argue that sustainable, equitable funding must replace this failing system. Their report makes clear that fines and fees are “bad for people, bad for budgets,” and that bold reform is urgently needed.


Everyday Injustice Podcast Episode 301: How Fines and Fees Punish Poverty and Destabilize Budgets

Davis Vanguard Podcast will be covering criminal justice reform, mass incarceration, wrongful convictions, and more.

New tracks tagged #Fines and Fees