Workshop to focus on cost of juvenile justice system fines

ATLANTA — Deep Center and the Berkeley Law Policy Advocacy Clinic will host The High Cost of Fines and Fees in the Juvenile Justice System, a look into the state of youth fines and fees in Georgia. Across the country, youths and their families face monetary charges for young people’s involvement in the justice system. Too often, an inability to pay pushes a young person deeper into the system and exacerbates the family’s economic distress.

In this workshop, participants will hear about efforts across the nation to create debt-free juvenile courtrooms, solutions that have worked, and the progress made in Georgia, as well as action steps on where we still need to go.

The event will be held virtually on March 8 at 6 p.m. and will feature advocates from Louisiana, the first state in the South to abolish youth fees and fines. The event is free, but registration is required.

“We want our village to better understand the impact fines and fees have on youths and their families within the Georgia juvenile justice system and how that can look vastly different from one county to the next,” Coco Papy, director of public policy and communications at the Deep Center, said in a news release. “Places like Chatham County, Dekalb County, and neighboring counties in Louisiana and Texas have showcased that it’s possible to do things differently. We should be, at every turn, encouraging decision-makers within our juvenile justice system toward these policies and practices.”

Court debt impacting youths has become a priority for reform across the country, as local jurisdictions and state governments realize that assessments and collections can be inconsistently imposed, fiscally ineffective, and a means of exacerbating poverty for indigent families — and have an especially disproportionately impact on families of color.

“As part of my work with the Debt Free Justice campaign — a national campaign to end youth fees and fines — I saw first-hand the momentum states are building to end debt for young people in the carceral system,” Maiya Zwerling, a clinical teaching fellow at the Berkeley Law Policy Advocacy Clinic, said. “Fourteen states and six localities have taken action, partially thanks to the robust bipartisan support.”

According to Rachel Wallace, who is also a clinical teaching fellow at the Policy Advocacy Clinic, “It has been exciting to see success in all regions of the country, including the South, and we expect many more states to take action in 2022.”

The High Cost of Fines and Fees in the Juvenile Justice System event is free, but registration is required.

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