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.

中文翻译：

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谁从刑事法律改革中受益？评估货币制裁政策中种族差异的自然实验

客观的

研究南达科他州改革前后美国印第安人和白人被定罪者在法庭罚款方面的差异，该改革训练法庭工作人员仅评估被告可以合理支付的罚款。

方法

采用自然实验设计，使用 2011 年 7 月至 2015 年 6 月期间轻罪逮捕定罪范围（N  = 34,700）的犯罪记录，使用逻辑回归来估计改革与罚款可能性之间的关联。

结果

改革与城市罚款评估的减少有关（OR，0.63；CI，0.39-1.04）；农村，无印度国家（OR，0.24；CI，0.18–0.33）；以及农村、部分印度乡村县（OR，0.24；CI，0.18-0.32）。美洲印第安人和白人都经历了这些减少，但城市县的美洲印第安人的减少幅度较小。

结论

被告的种族和当地法院结构的特征可能会影响针对货币制裁改革的司法行为。