The fees are already suspended during the pandemic, and their fiscal impact is not significant
Multnomah County announced in mid-March that, due to COVID-19, individuals who violate parole without committing a new crime during the pandemic would not be jailed unless there is a public safety risk. Later that month, it announced it was also suspending supervision fees — and county leaders say they’re looking for a way to phase out the fees for good.
According to an Oregon law that went into effect in 1981, individuals subject to parole or probation following their incarceration must pay a fee to offset the cost of their supervision.
The statute sets the minimum fee at $25 per month. The Multnomah County Department of Community Justice, which oversees probation and parole programs within the county, typically charges people on supervision $35 per month, according to the department’s director, Erika Preuitt.
Individuals can ask for a waiver or reduction of fees if they face significant hardship.
“When we’re talking about people in the criminal justice system, they are an economically marginalized group,” Preuitt said. “There’s a lot of collateral consequences for people who can’t pay.”
Those collateral consequences can include being found in violation of parole — or having debts sent to the Oregon Department of Revenue for collection — for nonpayment of supervision fees.
More than 3.6 million people in the United States are under probation supervision, according to a report from Prison Policy Initiative, and most are charged a monthly fee. More than 65% of those on supervision nationwide reported incomes lower than $20,000 per year, and 38% make less than $10,000 a year, placing them below the national poverty line. According to 2016-17 survey data from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, fewer than 10% of individuals on probation made $50,000 a year or more.
Prison Policy Initiative’s analysis also noted individuals on probation often have to pay court costs, onetime fees and electronic monitoring costs in addition to supervision fees.
STREET ROOTS INVESTIGATON: Monetary sanctions and the vicious circle of poverty they perpetuate
Although the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it’s unconstitutional to incarcerate someone for lack of ability to pay court-ordered fees and fines, failure to pay can be treated as a probation violation and lead to incarceration, extension of probation or the loss of public benefits.
Advocates say these fees, and the collateral consequences of failure to pay, defeat the purpose of probation, which theoretically allows individuals to work and manage family responsibilities while under court supervision, and which has long been touted as an alternative to incarceration.
On May 6, the Fines & Fees Justice Center released a list of policy recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic. It recommended state and local jurisdictions "end all collection of fines, fees, and court debt, including but not limited to: payments due under payment plans, wage garnishment, property liens, off-sets of tax refunds, unemployment insurance and other public benefits, especially those related to housing” and to direct private probation officers to stop collecting debts.
The center has been tracking jurisdictions' policies related to fee collection. It noted Oregon directed courts to stop imposing late fees on payments to the court, suspending driver licenses for nonpayment, sending delinquency notices or imposing collection fees and referring new cases to collections.
The only other jurisdiction to address probation fees in the context of the pandemic, according to the center’s tally, is Louisiana, whose Supreme Court sent a letter to judges recommending they suspend court-supervised probation fines and fees.
San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa counties in California eliminated these fees on a permanent basis prior to the pandemic, according to Lisa Foster, co-director of Co-Director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center. Just last month, Ramsey County, Minn., where St. Paul, is located, also permanently eliminated supervision fees.
Multnomah County may be unique in its decision to formally waive fees due to the pandemic. But other Oregon jurisdictions may be taking advantage of the state statute's flexibility in allowing parole officers to waive or reduce fees on a case-by-case basis.
"While we haven’t developed a formal policy to waive supervision fees during the pandemic, I have had the conversation with supervisors to communicate with their staff (Probation Officers) that now is not the time to take issue with those not paying, particularly if they’re unemployed," said Joe Simich, assistant director of Washington County Community Corrections, in an email to Street Roots. "Historically we haven’t violated anyone’s supervision solely because they’re behind on supervision fees," he said.
Whether supervision fees in Multnomah County can or will be waived permanently is unclear — but the Department of Community Justice was already looking into the feasibility of doing so.
Leadership at the department decided to suspend fees earlier this spring after Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s stay-home order shuttered businesses and schools, throwing tens of thousands of Oregonians out of work. This made the suspension of supervision fees “the right thing to do for the right reason,” Preuitt said.
“When people are losing income, people in the justice system are doubly impacted because of their record,” she said.
Multnomah County’s push to phase out the fees is part of a greater initiative to reduce over-incarceration and address racial and ethnic disparities in jails. Preuitt, who was appointed permanent director of the department in September after serving as interim director for nearly a year, told Street Roots that re-examining the use of fees has long been a priority for her and the county.
“We’re part of, I think, the national conversation around the impact of fines and fees and the impact of that,” said Mary Li, who directs the Multnomah Ideas Lab, which is housed within the Multnomah County Department of County Human Services and explores and tests new policy proposals for the county.
Earlier this year, Ideas Lab staff sought $50,000 in grant funding to investigate the feasibility of phasing out supervision fees permanently, but it wasn’t awarded the money — and it was money it needed to gather and collect data on the issue and to get feedback from people affected by the justice system.
Officials, however, are still interested in continuing the discussion, Li said.
It’s not clear how long the suspension of supervision fees will last because there are many unknowns attached to the coronavirus pandemic.
The fiscal impact of fee collection is negligible. Although the state’s rationale for imposing fees is to offset the cost of providing supervision services, Preuitt said, revenue for supervision fees makes up less than 1% of her department’s annual budget of $100 million.
But the county’s fiscal future is also deeply uncertain due to anticipated state budget cuts created by the pandemic.
“I think that the hard part for us right now, because of the budget impacts related to COVID-19 at the state level, at the local level, all those things are uncertain at this time,” Preuitt said.
But, she said, the county still intends to find a way.
“As we look into the future, suspending the fees is the right thing to be engaged, not only locally, but on a statewide level,” she said.
On the state level, there doesn’t appear to be an effort to change the 1981 law, said Eric Guyer, president of the Oregon Association of Community Corrections Directors.
“On a national level, I know it’s one of those things that gets talked about, but I’m not aware of any push that’s there,” Guyer said.
As of press time, Clackamas County had not responded to inquiries about its supervision fees policy during the pandemic.
Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
© 2020 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404.
