Congratulations to Sarah Shannon on her new publication in Sociological Forum:

From Dr. Shannon:

In this article, we use interviews from more than 400 court decision makers across eight states to show that the way criminal courts are organized creates “defensive ignorance,” where staff often don’t understand—and don’t feel responsible for—how fines and fees actually work. Because court roles are siloed and routines are taken-for-granted, people working in the system often don’t know how decisions about ability to pay are supposed to be made, nor do they seek out that information. As a result, indigence assessments meant to protect low income defendants rarely happen, allowing the harms of monetary sanctions to continue unchecked.