Professor Martin is interested in the use of money in the criminal justice system, specifically in the forms of monetary sanctions, such as fines, fees, and restitution.

Emma: I noticed in your bio that it mentioned that you were currently working on a project examining monetary sanctions in eight states. So I wanted to ask if you could share what kind of trends you have seen, and maybe how they vary across different states?

Professor Martin: Yeah, so that project's actually over. I'm no longer working on it, but it did last probably for more like... Seven years, it was gonna be five years. Wow. I'm happy to talk about it. Okay, so there, I mean the general trends are that a lot of states have all different types of fines and fees and restitution that are assessed when they have any contact whatsoever with the criminal legal system. And so there are a lot of people who have debt from that, like they can't actually afford to pay the fines, fees, and restitution. So they end up saddled with debt and in a lot of places. That debt can make you subject to being arrested again, can make you a subject to being put in jail. Even if it's just for a weekend or night, if there's a warrant out for your arrest because you haven't paid, and it's like 8 o'clock at night, there's no courtroom, the courtrooms aren't open, judges aren't there, so you have to spend the night. They will sometimes, in some places, intentionally take people to jail on a Friday, knowing that they stay there until Monday, and then they kind of coerce them into having to pay the whole amount because they want to get out of jail. So they'll set the bail amount at the amount that they owe, and that will make people pay. In terms of trends, I'd say some places the laws and policies are changing. There's a very active advocacy group and a lot of reform efforts underway to change how different jurisdictions handle that. So, realizing that people, it's just a poverty tax. If you can't afford to pay, it just makes the punishment worse.

Emma: Were there any issues with privatizations in your studies?

Professor Martin: Only in the sense that sometimes courts will have mandatory treatment, or like anger management, substance use counseling, or job training, so there are different things that Courts, jurisdictions will force people to do, and then those classes can be privately run as opposed to run by the state. So in our world, it's more around that. A lot of places have private probation. So, a private company will run the probation systems in Georgia and other places. So in that way, yes, this is the most. Those are the places where we see privatization in terms of monetary sanctions. And then there's some third-party debt collection. So some states will have contracts with debt collectors and say, you know, basically like you can... You can keep what you collect. You know, they'll get a contract, they'll pay the city, and then they... They'll get to keep whatever they collect from people.

Emma: It's very complicated, I see. My next question involves racial disparities. In what ways do monetary sanctions exacerbate existing racial disparities in the criminal justice system?

Professor Martin: I would say in all ways, because the criminal justice system has all types of racial disparities and poverty, we know it has a very strong racial connection in this country. And so you're just exacerbating it because you're taking people who are more likely to, in the criminal legal system, be impoverished. More likely to be a person of color. And so then you're putting more burden on them with this debt that they can't pay, which makes them more likely to end up incarcerated or subject to arrest or having to just go back to the court over and over again, even if they're never arrested, never go to jail. They still have to show up to court over and over again because they can't pay. So I would say, yes, it just exacerbates it. It makes it so people who are already kind of Marginalized or vulnerable become more marginalized and more vulnerable.

Emma: I assume that raises the reincarceration rate way too.

Professor Martin: Not necessarily because a lot of places don't like to put you in jail just for not having paid. It's usually because you haven't paid and you haven't shown up to court, so that's a failure to appear, or you haven't paid and you said you're going to pay, and so you've kind of broken the court order. Or you haven't paid in your probation, so they can revoke your probation or give you some type of extra punishment on the patient. So you're not usually going straight from like you haven't paid to you are now in jail. It's usually something to do with failure to appear, failure to pay, some warrants for your arrest, or probation. It's usually mediated through some other mechanism.

Emma: Do you think race factors into the decision-making of judges or policymakers when it comes to monetary sanctions?

Professor Martin: I think it factors into basically everything because all pupils have brains, and we are so aware that race is important. So I say it always factors into everything. I think some judges are more sensitive and aware of the role of race and the role of poverty and really try hard to avoid making it worse. So, like in a lot of places, a fine might be discretionary, so the judge can decide the amount of the fine. It can be from zero dollars to five hundred dollars. Whereas a fee is mandatory and assessed by the legislature, like the state Congress and the state House representatives. And so a lot of judges will just make the fine zero, knowing that they have to assess the fee that's mandated by the state legislature. And so a lot of judges are aware of that and try not to do it. Other judges like don't care and don't think of it, and in some places it's very racially homogenous, so there's not really a person-to-person racial decision making happening, it's kind of like where people live tends to be more all one race or another, but really depends.

Emma: My last question is, how do you see monetary sanctions affecting intergenerational financial stability?

Professor Martin: We see a lot of families participating in paying the monetary sanctions. And so if somebody owes money to the court, you see like somebody's significant other, their partner or their mom, sometimes the kids helping out an older parent, a sibling, you know, friends. So people's social networks often get involved in paying the debt. And so it's not necessarily like from one generation to another, just kind of no matter what age you are. People who you live with or who are part of your, you know, kind of intimate partners or intimate family connections, are helping you pay in some way. Or they're like letting you sleep on their couch so that you can pay. Or they're giving you gas money. Or they're driving around. Or you're eating at their house all the time. So they're in some way giving you financial support so that you can pay what you owe to the courts.