Assessing Ability to Pay: How Courts Can Ensure Fair and Effective Fines and Fees Practices
- Issue Areas
- Justice and public safety Financial security
- Outcomes
- Stable and healthy families
About this Sprint
In Spring 2025, Results for America partnered with the Fines & Fees Justice Center to deliver a 7-week rapid learning series for court stakeholders and advocates interested in implementing ability-to-pay assessments, payment plans, and/or community service or alternatives to fines and/or fees.
Over the last decade, one in three Americans have been impacted by court debt, often being forced to give up basic necessities like food and rent to pay down these costs. Fines and fees have also increased in size and severity, often exceeding people’s ability to pay them. This debt can follow families throughout their lives, exacerbating financial hardships, impeding employment opportunities and jeopardizing basic needs. Courts are also experiencing the serious consequences of unpayable fine and fee debt. All of these enforcement mechanisms consume extraordinary amounts of time and resources with little or no return.
Ability-to-pay assessments are evaluations made by courts to determine whether individuals can afford to pay fines, fees, or other monetary sanctions without causing economic hardship.
Assessing Ability to Pay: How Courts Can Ensure Fair and Effective Fines and Fees Practices was a 7-part online workshop hosted by Fines and Fees Justice Center (FFJC) and Results for America (RFA) designed to guide court stakeholders and community advocates in the implementation of efficient and effective ability-to-pay assessments.
What You'll Learn
- Learn when and why ability-to-pay assessments are required and how they help courts and communities. Gain insight into how courts may unknowingly violate legal and constitutional protections when they do not consider an individual's ability to pay. Understand how current practices may harm communities and undermine their trust and confidence in the courts. Learn why an effective ability-to-pay assessment reduces burdens on courts and court staff and results in increased compliance.
Sprint Partners
Fines & Fees Justice Center (FFJC) is the only national organization exclusively focused on ending unjust fines and fees in the justice system. Working together with affected communities and system stakeholders, FFJC’s goal is to create a justice system that treats individuals fairly, ensures public safety and community prosperity, and is funded equitably. This Sprint’s main facilitator, Lisa Foster, is a retired judge and the former Director of the Office for Access to Justice at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Results for America (RFA), a non-profit organization that works with governments to identify and implement evidence-based policies and practices. Over the last several years, RFA has successfully run various Solutions Sprints, supporting over 100 jurisdictions in implementing evidence-based solutions and benchmarking their progress towards better outcomes for their communities.
Curriculum
The ATP Sprint Action Plan is an implementation guidebook that offers key strategies, scaffolded exercises, and a collaborative space to support local and state jurisdictions to start or strengthen their work on an ability-to-pay assessment in courts.
Aligned Action Plan pages are detailed for each curriculum session below.
- ATP Sprint Action Plan Template
- Please make and save a copy of the template to customize and use for your own ability-to-pay assessment planning purposes.
Overview of an ability-to-pay assessment as a fair and effective fine & fee reform strategy.
Exploring what accountability actually means and how Ability to Pay assessments and the use of fine alternatives can increase accountability.
First Steps Toward Equitable Fines and Fees Practices (pp.7-8 on Community Service Alternatives)
The Jefferson County Equitable Fines and Fees Project Preliminary Findings on Fairness and Efficacy
The authors conclude that criminal justice fines and fees are not a viable source of court and government funding; that these costs harm people who cannot afford to pay them; and that public safety is compromised because law enforcement resources are devoted to collection. Furthermore, because the costs of collection and enforcement are excluded from most assessments, actual revenues are far lower than expected.
Challenges with Traditional Community Service: The Center for Justice Innovation released a report in 2019 called Court-Ordered Community Service: A National Perspective, which looked at the state of community service nationwide and offered recommendations for making it more actionable as an alternative to fines and fees
An overview of the essential elements of an Ability-to-Pay policy to craft a fair and equitable fines and fees practice.
First Steps Toward Equitable Fines and Fees Practices (pp. 4-6, 10-11)
Ethical Obligations of Judges in Collecting Legal Financial Obligations and Other Debts
Bench Cards
Texas (includes expanded definition of community service)
Mecklenburg County (including presumptions)
Learn how to tailor an ATP policy using the legal framework in your jurisdiction and how to find the data you need to ensure your policy is successful.
Explore best practices and models for conducting ability to pay assessments for fines and fees, payment plans and community service.
Learn about different advocacy strategies that have been used to secure lasting reform, including how to engage and message to diverse stakeholders.
Watch these videos on examples of fines and fee reform in local jurisdictions: Washtenaw and Miami-Dade
SF Financial Justice Project: Homepage | Financial Justice Project
Learn more about the Fines and Fees Justice Center and explore FFJC’s Clearinghouse.
If you're interested in learning more about these topics or how to apply these resources to your own ability-to-pay assessment initiatives, please reach out to [email protected].