Legal Financial Obligation or LFO. It’s an umbrella term for costs imposed by the courts on people who go through the judicial system. That money can go toward any number of things, from victim restitution to collection fees on the original debt imposed.
In Washington state, community organizations, lawmakers and legal advocates see it as a broken system that has been successful only in keeping the indigent and people of color mired in the criminal justice system long after their actual debt to society has been paid.
Columbia Legal Services (CLS), a group that fights for social and economic justice, has long had LFOs in its sights. Reform is one major objective of its Institutions Project, where attorney Nick Allen works.
What was an attempt to hold people accountable has become a system that criminalizes poverty and forces those caught in the criminal justice system to pay for the privilege, Allen said.
LFOs include mandatory fees, such as the $500 Victim Penalty Assessment or $100 DNA recording, and others that focus more on recouping costs. Victim restitution, or payments back to the victim to “make them whole,” also fall under the LFO rubric.
“Fines have been around for a long time. The complex system of LFOs that we have now has only been in place I believe for 25 years or so,” Allen said. “It hasn’t always been codified like it is nowadays.”
Some quick facts about LFOs:
According to a 2014 report by CLS and the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington (ACLU), the average total of fines and fees imposed in a felony case in Washington was $2,540.
If that doesn’t seem like an exorbitant amount, consider that in May 2016, a report released by the Federal Reserve showed that 46 percent of respondents could not cover an unexpected bill of $400, or would have to sell their belongings to meet that need. Then think about the fact that an estimated 80 to 90 percent of people going through Washington’s criminal justice system qualify for a public defender, meaning they are considered too poor to afford their own.
If a person can’t pay the lump sum, the amount begins accruing interest at a rate of 12 percent plus collection fees in some cases. That begins immediately on sentencing, meaning that debt mounts quickly upon those who are in jail or prison and do not have the ability to make money to pay off the LFO.
Once, certain types of LFO debt could expire, but that law changed in the early 2000s, Allen said.
“I could continue to be brought back before the court for the rest of my life for not being able to pay,” Allen said. “It really keeps people tied to the criminal justice system.”
The CLS and ACLU also found a lack of consistency across the state in how LFOs were assessed and followed up.
That’s because courts can decide whether or not to assess certain fines and whether to waive the interest on that debt. The county decides how to follow up with people who do not pay, be that through collections agencies or by sending people back to jail.
Under current law, people committing the same crime could pay vastly different amounts depending in which county they were convicted.
The most extreme cases took place in Benton County, which settled a lawsuit in June alleging that county officials were effectively financing other aspects of government off the backs of criminals by assessing hefty fines and fees and then working aggressively to collect.
The county received payment both from the prisoners and the cities in which they were charged to keep them jailed. According to the complaint, a Benton County judge estimated that the county would lose $10 million if it ceased the practice.
County commissioners did vote to end judges’ authority to put people back in jail or assign them to work duty for nonpayment after the lawsuit was filed. The settlement put a number of restrictions on the county and the judges’ authority to put people in jail or perform manual labor for nonpayment.
A spokesperson for the ACLU said that the settlement sends a “strong signal” to other counties that they must follow the law on LFOs. At the same time, legal advocates including CLS and the ACLU and community groups like Blackout WA are fighting to make those laws better.
Progress has been slow.
On April 11, the Racial Equity Team held a press conference to talk about the end of the 2015–16 legislative session in Olympia.
Some groups had cause for celebration — progress had been made on education and environmental reform. But the results on the LFO bills in the House and Senate, 1390 and 5713, were not good.
The bills would have eliminated that 12 percent interest rate, which “piles up real fast,” said Jahvie Cotton of Blackout WA, a Black advocacy group.
“We will try again. We are not giving up,” Cotton said.
In their 2014 report, CLS and the ACLU gave a series of recommendations for LFOs in the state. They called for consistency across the state on assessing an inmate’s ability to pay and a court’s ability to waive non-mandatory fees. They also sought to cut back on the interest rates, ensure that defendants have legal counsel early and expand reporting requirements so that government demonstrates the costs of LFO collection.
Reforming LFO laws is one step toward a fairer criminal justice system that punishes but doesn’t hinder people’s re-entry into society, Allen said.
“In no way does that promote successful rehabilitation,” Allen said. “It amazes me that we have not passed laws, changed our system in Washington State.”