Probation fees a sleeper issue, barrier to success of reforms

At a moment in history where more than 10% of adult Texans have outstanding arrest warrants, the ever growing array of increasingly unmanageable fines for low level offenses and fees for probationers is a mundane "sleeper" issue, one that may have profound implications in particular for how well the probation-centered de-incarceration reforms approved by the Texas Legislature in 2007 work in the long term.

This subject of onerous fees too seldom rises to a high enough priority level, I'm afraid, even on this blog. But with every new legislative session, probationers suffer from a death from a thousand cuts, and every new fee and fine makes it less likely they'll be able to successfully complete court-ordered community supervision.

The most egregious example is the Orwellian-named Driver Responsibility Program, especially the high fines for DWI offenders - it suffers about a 70% noncompliance rate! Similarly, rates of restitution payments are strikingly low in part because the amount of restitution expected from low-income defendants is frequently unrealistic in the first place.

Every two years in Texas, more nickel and dime fees are added onto probationers' plates until we've reached the point where, for many, it's unrealistic to expect them to pay. After all, most of these folks, carrying a criminal record, don't qualify for high paying jobs and a felony record precludes them from many occupations. It doesn't matter, though; the Lege just keeps tacking on fees.

I mention this after noticing a bunch of bills in this vein moving through the process, starting with one by Rep. Paula Piereson attaching a new $50 fee for probationers who are required to do community service. Similarly, version of Sen. Dan Patrick's DNA database expansion bill that passed out of the Senate includes a new $34 fee to cover the costs of processing DNA tests.

According to the criminal justice impact statement, HB 666 by Gutierrez "would increase the court cost on the conviction of certain intoxication and drug offenses from $50 to $60 and make it applicable to any offense classified as a Class B misdemeanor or higher that falls within specified offenses types, including assault, arson, robbery, burglary, theft, fraud, weapons, and intoxication."

A bill that passed out of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and is waiting in Calendars, HB 2389 by Hernandez lards on more fees for alcohol offenses, creating "a $50 breath alcohol testing program fee as a court cost for persons if convicted of one of seven Penal Code offenses: Driving While Intoxicated (DWI), Driving While Intoxicated with a Child Passenger, Flying While Intoxicated, Boating While Intoxicated, Assembling or Operating an Amusement Ride While Intoxicated, Intoxication Assault, or Intoxication Manslaughter. It would allow counties to retain $5 of each fee collected for administrative costs," according to the fiscal note.

Another bill that's out of committee makes mandatory use of "ignition interlocks" for all DWI probationers and makes them pay for the costs. A bill requiring electronic monitoring for registered sex offenders requires them all to pay for the equipment. Another bill that passed out of committee in the Senate would authorize arrest for someone who is able to pay for monitoring costs, in the view of the court, but fails to do so.

Maybe it sounds petty to complain about a $50 additional fee, but my real complaint is the overarching trend. We see more of these fees literally every session, and probationers already owe fines, court costs, probation department fees, restitution and can be required to pay for their own drug or alcohol treatment and testing. If they don't pay the mounting fees, fines and costs, they face revocation or at least an array of intermediate sanctions, none of which are themselves free to the taxpayers.

These costs partially explain why so many defendants actually choose jail over probation for many low-level offenses, even though it costs the taxpayers much more. When that happens, or if they're revoked to prison, the state all of a sudden must foot ALL their costs, so surely it makes sense to invest the much smaller amounts on the front end if it means not overburdening probationers with fees to the point they cannot succeed?

It won't happen in the 81st Legislature, but somewhere down the line - perhaps in an interim charge by one of the relevant committees - this issue needs to be studied in more detail and the issue of probation fees rationalized. If we as a society believe that police protection, criminal adjudication and the incarceration of people for crimes is a primary role of government, then we need to pay for those functions with tax dollars and stop larding on ever-higher pile of debts onto people who largely can't afford them.

You can't squeeze blood from a stone, the saying goes, and trying doesn't make us any safer. In fact, it can contribute to probationers' sense that the system is so slanted against their success they should just stop trying, contributing to despair and, ultimately, to recidivism.