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The importance of monetary sanctions as a topic of sociological inquiry derives from both their ubiquity in American criminal justice and the socioeconomic realities of many people, especially those ensnared in the criminal legal system. This essay reviews the literature on monetary sanctions across various fields, including applied research, economics, criminology, political science, public policy, and sociology. Early approaches tended to be more system evaluations, whereas later work emphasizes the structural determinants of monetary sanctions and their impacts. Insights from research across time and discipline foreshadow the contemporary debate about monetary sanctions and are important precursors to the work in this volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restitution as a social practice can simultaneously have a punitive effect and add to a person's criminal justice debt load, while maintaining a reparative and therefore restorative component. We use principles of restorative justice to assess restitution as a concept and a practice, drawing on data from a survey experiment administered to a nationally representative sample (n = 433). We find that the common and strongly preferred conception of restitution is "direct," entailing a convicted person compensating a victim for quantifiable loss. Evidence from Victim Compensation Funds (VCFs) in all 50 states demonstrate the widespread use of "indirect" restitution, through which funds from various sources are distributed to qualifying victims. Broader trends in criminal justice policy related to the centering of the victim and a managerial approach to punishment help explain our findings. We conclude that the divergence between common conception and widespread practice indicates a need for a revised notion of restitution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to increasing recognition of the collateral consequences associated with monetary sanctions, fees have begun to occupy a prominent place in critical debates. This is especially true for community corrections, where multiple fees are assessed and collected. However, the agency-level perspective has largely been omitted, especially regarding how the current landscape may facilitate—or impede—reform. Using self-report data from a state-wide sample of Chiefs of Probation and Parole, this paper provides a new perspective on the complex interplay between the policy and practices surrounding monetary sanctions. Responses suggest that the practices and philosophies surrounding the collection of fees vary significantly between jurisdictions. This obligation is also reported to challenge the traditional roles of probation officers by limiting discretion and complicating the existing tensions between their treatment and control-oriented responsibilities. Some respondents indicated meaningful reliance on fee revenue for operational and treatment budgets. Implications for policy reform, especially considering the variation observed in this single state, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a comparative historical analysis of legislative transcripts and primary and secondary historical documents in Illinois and Michigan, we trace the adoption of a largely understudied form of monetary sanction: pay-to-stay fees. Pay-to-stay fees are financial commitments imposed by the state on incarcerated individuals for the day-to-day cost of their incarceration. Our study identified two mutually constitutive bureaucratic motivations for the adoption of these fees—austerity as the primary rationale and deservingness as a secondary rationale. This analysis highlights an earlier conceptualization of monetary sanctions as a means of revenue generation than has previously been explored. Our findings suggest that pay-to-stay fees originated in these states from broader debates about who is ultimately fiscally responsible for the welfare state and the soaring costs of maintaining the rehabilitative ideal. During periods of fiscal crisis, state legislators have consistently looked toward this type of monetary sanction as a means to fund the correctional system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]