Ending Unjust and Ineffective Criminal Fees in California

Due to the vision and leadership of Debt Free Justice California (DFJC), California policymakers have eliminated more than half of its 90 criminal fees and relieved people of more than $6.9 billion in fee debt since 2020. DFJC has successfully advocated to end unjust fees, including supervision fees charged to people on probation and fees charged to people who were represented by a public defender, making California a leader in criminal fee abolition across the country. 

As counsel for DFJC, the Policy Advocacy Clinic (PAC) has actively monitored implementation of fee elimination legislation. This report details four key findings: 

1. Counties have largely complied with state law to end the assessment of criminal fees, including over 80% of counties demonstrating compliance with all four bills. 
2. Counties have discharged more than $6.9 billion in criminal fee debt, though we estimate that total relief is much greater. 
3. Although most fee debt is uncollectible, the State provided counties with over $580 million in funding to replace budget shortfalls from lost fee revenue. Counties have allocated the majority of these funds to law enforcement (Sheriff, Probation, etc.) budgets.  
4. Several counties have taken voluntary action to end the assessment of some criminal fees in advance of state legislation.

“Almost immediately after being released from prison, Los Angeles County told me that I owed over $3,000 in administrative fees. As a mother, I wanted to prioritize taking care of my son and getting back on my feet. The fees held me back, both emotionally and financially. These bills allow people returning home to focus on what matters most—rebuilding our families and lives.”

–Angelique Evans, Los Angeles County

Research shows that charging criminal fees causes lasting financial and emotional harm. Criminal fees limit economic mobility by saddling people with insurmountable debt and cause significant emotional stress, often forcing families to choose between putting food on the table and paying their fee debt. Because most people cannot afford to pay fees, collection rates are minimal and counties spend significant resources trying to pursue uncollectible debt. Because Black and brown Californians are subjected to targeted policing and are overrepresented at every stage of the criminal legal system, they face significantly more criminal fees and associated debt. This is not just an economic justice issue but a racial justice one as criminal fees are used as a racial wealth extraction policy lever. 

Since 2009, community members and advocates have organized to end monetary sanctions in California, successfully campaigning to repeal all fees charged in California’s juvenile legal system and the majority of fees in the criminal system. DFJC, which was formed in 2018, built on these successes to expand the scope of fee elimination and scale of debt relief for millions of Californians. Their successes offer a blueprint for states across the country interested in reducing the harm caused by criminal fees. 

Scope and Impact of Criminal Fee Elimination Since 2020

Since 2020, California has passed four bills to eliminate 46 criminal fees and discharge over $6.9 billion in debt. While, in practice, criminal fee debt is largely uncollectable, each bill provided backfill funding to counties to replace the alleged loss of revenue from fee elimination.

Implementation 

As with all policy wins, implementation is where the rubber hits the road. It is the true measure of impact. The Policy Advocacy Clinic (PAC) actively monitored implementation of fee repeal legislation largely through Public Record Act requests to California’s 58 counties. Overall, we looked at compliance with state law, the amount of debt discharged, use of backfill funding, and voluntary county-level reforms to end fees in advance of state action.

Findings 

1) Counties are Largely in Compliance with Fee Repeal Bills

Most of California’s 58 counties complied with fee repeal bills and promptly stopped assessing and collecting fees. 

• 57 counties provided documentation of compliance with Assembly Bill 1869 (2020) 
• 50 counties provided documentation of compliance with Assembly Bill 177 (2021) 
• 53 counties provided documentation of compliance with Assembly Bill 199 (2022) 
• 50 counties provided documentation of compliance with Assembly Bill 134 (2023) 

Chart A shows compliance with fee repeal bills by county. Each county received one point for showing documentation of compliance with each bill for a maximum of four points total. Nearly 80% of counties provided documentation of compliance with all four fee repeal bills. 

2) Counties Have Discharged More than $6.9 Billion in Debt Statewide

In order to ensure meaningful relief for Californians, fee repeal bills have also required counties to discharge or write off outstanding debt from previously assessed fees. 

In response to Public Records Act requests, counties provided documentation of the discharge of more than $3.4 billion in criminal fee debt, which we believe is a fraction of the actual debt released.

Although responsiveness to our requests improved over time, the data on discharged debt provided by counties are nevertheless limited. For example, nearly a quarter of counties did not provide the amount of fee debt discharged in connection with Assembly Bills 1869 (23 fees eliminated) and 177 (19 fees eliminated). 

Taking the weighted average of debt discharged for counties that provided data, we estimate that the total amount of fee debt discharged statewide based on county population pursuant to Assembly Bills 1869, 177, and 199 is $6.9 billion. 

Initial estimates of criminal fee debt calculated in 2020 by the Policy Advocacy Clinic (approximately $18 billion) were based on limited data on outstanding debt provided by a fraction of counties. The included total discharge — $6.9 billion — in this report is an updated estimate to reflect more recent data and documentation. However, we believe the total amount of criminal fee debt discharged to date is much higher as data provided by counties is self-reported and likely not comprehensive. For example, although AB 177 eliminated 19 distinct fees, some counties only provided discharge information for a subset of the fees eliminated.  

Chart B shows the total amount of debt discharged in criminal fees statewide under AB 1869, 177, and 199. Toggle to the second tab to see more detail on the dollar amount discharged by each county. 

To help understand and compare the scope of relief provided to Californians across the State, Chart C shows the amount of fee debt discharged per person in each County. 

3) Most Backfill Funding Went to Law Enforcement   

Each fee repeal law allocated state funds to counties to replace revenues lost from the repeal of fees. DFJC attempted to restrict the use of backfill funding allocated by the State to counties to non-law enforcement related purposes. Legislators ultimately left this to the discretion of local governments. However, state law requires counties to report to the Legislature on how backfill funding was spent. 

For the $65 million in backfill funding allocated for fees eliminated under Assembly Bill 1869, most counties assigned funding to law enforcement agencies such as probation and sheriff departments. Only two counties, Santa Cruz and Trinity, allocated all funding received to non-law enforcement budgets, specifically to public defense budgets. Four counties distributed funding to the county general fund and did not provide additional detail on how funds were used subsequently. Alameda and Siskiyou Counties were the only counties that did not provide this information to the State or upon request.   

Chart D shows how counties assigned AB 1869 backfill funding by agency type. Toggle to the second tab to see more detail on which agencies counties allocated funding to.  

Of the 47 counties that reported assigning at least some of their backfill funding to law enforcement agencies, the average percentage of funding allocated was 90.4%. In total, $48 million of AB 1869 backfill funding was put toward law enforcement budgets in 2021-22. 

Chart E shows the percentage of backfill funding put toward law enforcement budgets across the State.

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4) Counties are Voluntarily Ending Additional Fees in Advance of State Action

“The court determined, prior to the passage of AB 134 that the assessment of such fees was a financial burden on most defendants. In most cases, the court waived the fees at the time of the hearing. In the few cases in which fees had been ordered, a high percentage were never paid. Accordingly, the court determined that it was not a useful exercise to continue to order these fees.”   

–Mendocino County on its decision to stop charging expungement related fees

Several counties have ended the assessment of statutorily authorized, but discretionary, fees ahead of the effective date of state legislation. For example, 27 counties stopped charging expungement-related fees eliminated under Assembly Bill 134 before the change in state law. Fourteen of those counties reported never charging expungement-related fees.

Some counties have also elected to go beyond what is required by state law. For example, although Assembly Bill 199 only reduced the civil assessment fee from $300 to $100 prospectively, 45 counties have now opted to stop charging civil assessment fees altogether. Using county data on amounts previously assessed, we estimate that more than $116 million (or $46.7 million per year) in new civil assessment fees have not been charged over the last two years by the counties’ collective action, spurred by AB 199.

Chart F highlights which counties have voluntarily stopped charging civil assessments fees.

Conclusion

By eliminating 46 criminal fees and relieving people of over $6.9 billion in criminal fee debt, California has taken significant steps toward ending the unjust, racist practices the criminal legal system has used to extract money from some of our state’s most marginalized communities. However, it should be noted that counties continue to drive backfill funding into law enforcement activities, rather than contributing to critical community resources, which perpetuates the vicious cycle of continued wealth extraction from Black and brown communities. 

This report shows the large impact that DFJC has had on dismantling the monetary sanctions that burden so many Black and brown families in California. From the early organizing of directly-impacted youth in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, DFJC has built the fee abolition movement into a powerful statewide force for reform, and will continue fighting until debt-free justice is fully realized in California.

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For more information or questions about this update, please contact Stephanie Campos-Bui (scamposbui@clinical.law.berkeley.edu) or Maiya Zwerling (mzwerling@clinical.law.berkeley.edu). 

For a downloadable pdf version of this report, click here.