The assessment of fees and fines also appears to be influenced by defendant characteristics: Hispanic defendants are assessed significantly higher fees and fines than white defendants, and male defendants are assessed significantly higher fees and fines than female defendants. - The Assessment and Consequences of Legal Financial Obligations in Washington State.

A study by University of Washington Sociologists Katherine Beckett and Alexes Harris confirms what many have long thought - that criminal courts discriminate on the basis of race and sex in the sentences they hand down.  Read about it here (The Seattle Times, 2/25/09).  Read the study itself here.

The study, conducted for the State of Washington Justice and Minority Commission, spanned four years and looked at 3,366 cases.  But the study did not evaluate incarceration times or rates.  Instead, it focused on the fines and fees assessed.  Those Legal Financial Obligations (LFOs) ranged from a low of $500 to a high of over $21,000.  When restitution orders were included, the high shot up to over $200,000. 

Among the study's findings are the fact that men are sentenced to pay higher fees and fines than are women for the same offense, and that, amazingly enough, drug offenses result in higher fees and fines than do violent felonies.

Those with LFOs remain under the jurisdiction of the sentencing court until the obligation is completely repaid, even if that is longer than the statutory maximum for the offense.  The study emphasizes that over half of those studied earned incomes below the federal poverty line.  The majority also had minor dependent children.

The report urges the state to overhaul the way Superior Court judges assess those penalties.

Attorney Marc Angelucci writes that this study corroborates others that show that, for example, "gender differences favoring women are more often found than race differences favoring whites." (Crime and Delinquency, 1989, v. 35, pp. 136-68)