Who benefits from criminal legal reform? A natural experiment to assess racial disparities in a policy targeting monetary sanctions

Objective

To examine disparities in court fines between American Indian and White convicted persons before and after a South Dakota reform, which trained court personnel to only assess fines that could be reasonably paid by defendants.

Methods

A natural experiment design using criminal records for the universe of convictions for misdemeanor arrests between July 2011–June 2015 (N = 34,700) was employed to estimate the association between the reform and the likelihood of a fine using logistic regression.

Results

The reform was associated with reductions in fine assessments in urban (OR, 0.63; CI, 0.39–1.04); rural, no Indian Country (OR, 0.24; CI, 0.18–0.33); and rural, part-Indian Country counties (OR, 0.24; CI, 0.18–0.32). Both American Indian and White persons experienced these reductions, but the reductions were smaller for American Indians in urban counties.

Conclusions

A defendant’s race and features of local court structures may shape judicial behavior in response to monetary sanctioning reforms.