Criminal Justice Debt During the Prisoner Reintegration Process: Who Has It and How Much?
Abstract
Much recent, national attention has centered on financial sanctions and associated debt burdens related to criminal justice. Scholars and practitioners alike have argued that financial debt among the incarcerated, in particular, exacerbates a transition home already defined by difficulties. This article takes a step back and assesses who is at risk of these adverse consequences in reentry by examining the extent of debt burdens that resulted from financial sanctions, its sources, and the individual-level factors that are associated with owing criminal justice debt. Relying on the Returning Home data ( N = 740), results from descriptive analyses, logistic regression, and negative binomial models show that a large proportion of respondents owed debts and that debt was strongly linked with being mandated to community supervision. In addition, debt amount was predicted by employment, income, and race. Policy implications in the realm of financial sanctioning by courts and correctional agencies are discussed.
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African-Americans are more likely to owe LFO debt.
“African-Americans are more likely to owe LFO debt (Link, 2019).”
From Debt, Incarceration, and Re-entry: a Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as Link, 2019
LFO debt is most often reported as arising from post-release supervision fees including half-way housing rent.
“LFO debt is most often reported as arising from post-release supervision fees including half-way housing rent (Diller et al., 2009; Johnson, 2015; Link, 2019; Ortiz & Jackey, 2019).”
From Debt, Incarceration, and Re-entry: a Scoping Review (2021) · cites this paper as Link, 2019
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- Authors
- Link, N. W.
- Affiliations
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
- Corresponding author
- Link, Nathan W.
- ORCID
- Link, Nathan W.
- Venue
- Criminal Justice and Behavior
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2018-08-19
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 154-172
- ISSN
- 0093-8548 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3594
- OpenAlex
- W2888263603
- Cited by
- 55
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 3
- FWCI
- 12.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Criminal Justice and Behavior (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Social Sciences › Law › Criminal Justice and Penology
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems
- Keywords
- financial sanctions, prisoner reentry, debt burden, community supervision, incarceration, race, employment, income, recidivism
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