Day Fines in Connecticut

The day fine involves a two-step process. First, the court sentences the offender to a certain number of day-fine units based on the seriousness of the offense, and without regard to the offender's financial resources. Second, the value of each unit is established as a share of the offender's daily income—hence the name “day fines. ” The actual fine is determined by multiplying the day fine units by the appropriate share of the offender's daily income. The goal is to impose equitable fines where the punitive impact is the same for people with different economic resources.

According to William Carbone, executive director of the Office of Alternative Sanctions, the Connecticut day fines experiment lasted approximately 18 months. The Judicial Department decided to discontinue it because it was too labor intensive and costly to administer. It was especially time consuming to assess the financial ability of defendants to pay. Carbone believes one positive result was that defendants whose case would otherwise have been nolled or who would have received probation at least received some form of punishment in the form of fines. Carbone promised to send us a final report of the pilot program and we will forward it to you as soon as we receive it.

Connecticut experimented with day fines in 1992 in the context of a pilot program in GA 2 in Bridgeport. The state received $ 64,000 in federal funds to pay for a day fine coordinator, a secretary, and consultant.

We only have figures for the first six months of the program (May—October 1992). During that period 694 people were ordered to pay day fines. The total amount of day fines ordered plus costs was $ 261,037. Of this amount, $ 34,512 or around 13% resulted in a default. The offenses for which day fines were ordered during this period break down as follows: class B felony—2; class C felony—2; class D felony—35; unclassified felony—140; class A misdemeanor—204; class B misdemeanor—55; class C misdemeanor—221; unclassified misdemeanor—35. Thus, 575, or around 74% involved misdemeanor charges.

The “day fine” concept was initially developed in Scandinavia in the 1920s and 1930s and introduced in West Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a substitute for short prison terms. Day Fine systems are in place in eight European countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Portugal, and Sweden. Day fines have been piloted successfully in England. They are also found in Cuba, Costa Rica, and Bolivia. It was introduced in this country in August, 1988 when judges in the New York City borough of Staten Island began the first systematic use of it. Currently, at least nine U. S. locations are using day fines. Six of these locations (four sites in Oregon, and one each in Connecticut and Iowa) are taking part in a U. S. Bureau of Justice Assistance Project that provides federal money and assistance. The other sites are Maricopa County, Arizona; Ventura, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Akron, Ohio and Houston, Texas are planning to implement day fine pilot programs.

The percentage share of the daily income and the method for calculating the offender's disposable daily income vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. The goal is to impose equitable fines where the punitive impact is the same for people with different economic resources.

Some research concludes that in both the United States and Europe, day fines might prove to be a greater deterrent and result in a lower recidivism rate than either probation alone or incarceration.

Studies such as the Staten Island Day Fine project have concluded that day fines can be utilized by American courts, average fines imposed are larger than traditional fines, the total amount of fines collected are greater than the traditional method, collection rates for fines remained high, and lower income offenders are no better or worse at complying with day fine sentences than with traditionally imposed fines.

Day fines have many advantages according to their proponents. Although less severe than incarceration, the criminal fine has an unmistakenly punitive impact on the offender. Its message is clearly punitive and meshes with criminal justice philosophies that stress offender accountability. It is based on principles of equity and justice. It does not destroy the defender's ties to family and the community. It can be an important source of revenue and is a far less costly alternative to incarceration. It does not place offenders, especially nonviolent ones, in a prison environment where they will be “educated,” or pressured into becoming more hardened and perhaps violent and dangerous. (See Judith Greene, The Staten Island Day Fine Experiment. )

Two primary goals of the criminal justice system are deterrence and rehabilitation. Some recent studies, according to Judith Greene of the Vera Institute of Justice, suggest that day fines advance both of these goals when compared with incarceration or probation.

For example, a West German study that tracked offenders over a five-year period concluded that those who had been fined were far less likely to re-offend than those who had been jailed (16% for those fined, compared with 50% for those incarcerated). When statistical tests were performed that allowed researchers to control the data for such variables as type and severity of the offense, prior record, age, and social class, a clear advantage for fines over both probation and jailing in terms of recidivism was established for property crimes such as theft and fraud. (Albrecht and Johason, 1980, Fines and Justice Administration: The Experience of the Federal Republic of Germany. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 4: 3-14. )

In the United States, Daniel Glaser and Margaret Gordon conducted an analysis of the recidivism of offenders sentenced to various combinations of probation, jail, and monetary penalties by Los Angeles Municipal Court judges. They found that when offenders with similar criminal records are compared, financial penalties are associated with lower recidivism rates than either probation alone or incarceration. (Glaser and Gordon 1988, Use and Effectiveness of Fines, Jail, and Probation. Los Angeles: University of Southern California Social Science Research Institute).

According to Greene The West Germany experience indicates that the widespread use of day fines can dramatically affect the criminal justice system.

Greene indicates that the West Germans revised their penal code in 1969. At that time, the number of offenders being sentenced to prison had been greatly exceeding available capacity, and a court had ruled that triple-celling was unconstitutional.

In response, the revised penal code established the principle that prison terms of six months or less should be used only in exceptional cases and that fines should be the norm. Within two years, according to Greene, German courts had reduced the use of sentences under six months from 113,273 to 23,664 per year. The use of fines was increased from 63 to 84% of all sentences. Between 1968 and 1971, the percentage of sentences involving prison fell from 23 to 7%. The incarceration rate fell from around 100 prisoners per 100,000 to 66 per 100,000.

The 1969 reform included a shift from a fixed-sum fining system to a model based on the Scandinavian day fine system. According to Greene, the long term effect of the reform remains significant. Fines continue to comprise more than 80% of all sentences while the use of short term imprisonment and the overall incarceration rate continue to remain low.

The first day fine experiment in American courts occurred in the Criminal Courts of Richmond County which encompasses Staten Island, New York, between 1987 and 1989. When Judge Rose McBrien imposed the first American day fine on August 12, 1988 it culminated nearly 10 years of research and more than a year of planning and development by the Vera Institute of Justice, a private organization in New York City. Support for the planning effort was provided by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research and development arm of the U. S. Department of Justice and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

The day fine planning group consisted of three judges, the district attorney's office, representatives of the public defender's office and the private bar, and Vera Institute staff.

1. the theoretical complexity of the day fine or the burden of its two-stage procedure decreased the use of fines;

2. the use of fines shifted from one type of offense to another;

3. day fines on average were higher than the previous fixed fines, and if so, whether this had any negative effect on the existing high collection ratio; and

4. the day fine alone or in concert with new collection techniques had any impact on collection.

The NIJ study reached the following conclusions regarding the impact of day fines on sentencing.

1. Day fines were successfully introduced into routine sentencing, and the process was neither too complex nor too time consuming to be applied routinely in a fast paced criminal court.

2. There was no appreciable effect on judges' sentencing decisions; overall sentencing patterns involving incarceration remained the same. (This result appears to differ from the West German experience that resulted in far fewer people being incarcerated).

3. Average fines imposed rose 25%, and if the day fines had not been restrained by statutory maximum fine limitations, the overall average fine amount would have risen 84%.

4. The total amount of fines imposed increased by 14%.

5. As anticipated, there was more variation among fines for each offense when they were calculated using the day fine system.

The study reached the following conclusions relating to collection rates and patterns.

1. Despite substantial increase in the amount of fines, the court's high collection rate was not undermined. Regarding offenders who paid nothing, the day fine experiment resulted in a no-payment rate of 6% compared with 22% for traditional fines.

2. Day fines took longer to collect than traditional fines. For traditional fines, the mean member of days for full payment was 55, for day fines it was 114.

3. The day fine program significantly reduced the number of arrest warrants issued for failure to appear at post sentence hearings.

The study reached the following conclusions regarding the relationship between income and fine amount.

1. Under the day fine system, individual income plays a greater role in determining the fine amount than the traditional system does. Income plays a role in traditional fining also, but the day fine standardizes and makes explicit the decision-making principles already in place.

2. Low income offenders were no better or worse at complying with day fine sentences than