Notable new materials on economic sanctions from The Hamilton Project

The Hamilton Project has assembled some notable new materials under the heading "The Economics of Bail, Fines, and Fees in the U.S. Criminal Justice System."  An event last week on this topic with multiple notable discussants is recorded here, and this one-pager reports on three papers with this introduction to the set:

Monetary sanctions have played a role in the U.S. criminal justice system since its founding, but the way these sanctions — bail, fines, fees, and forfeitures — are used has changed dramatically over time and across jurisdictions, as illustrated in the recent Timbs v. Indiana Supreme Court ruling.  These sanctions have important effects on who is detained and convicted, their subsequent labor market outcomes, and the priorities of law enforcement agencies.  New, rigorous research has provided an opportunity to implement evidence-based reforms: making better use of alternatives to cash bail, adjusting individual sanctions to reflect ability to pay, and breaking the link between sanction revenue and the budgets of law enforcement agencies.

Here are links to these three notable new papers and related materials:

• "Addressing Modern Debtors’ Prisons with Graduated Economic Sanctions that Depend on Ability to Pay" by Beth Colgan

• "Proposals for Improving the U.S. Pretrial System" by Will Dobbie and Crystal Yang

• "A Proposal to End Regressive Taxation through Law Enforcement" by Michael Makowsky

• "Nine Facts about Monetary Sanctions in the Criminal Justice System" by Patrick Liu, Ryan Nunn and Jay Shambaugh