The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has released a report examining the impact of financial issues people and families encounter with the criminal justice system experience.
Justice-Involved Individuals and the Consumer Financial Marketplace details an ecosystem that includes fees and lack of choice where families are forced to shoulder costs.
“Many incarcerated individuals and their families pay exorbitant fees for basic financial services,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said. The report describes how private companies undermine individuals to successfully transition from incarceration.
According to the analysis, once families make contact with the criminal justice system, they are confronted with a series of financial challenges, with for-profit companies embedded throughout.
The report maintains there are local, state, and federal governments that impose criminal justice debt on the people who interact with it in the form of fines, fees, and restitution; the incarcerated and their families are limited in the choice of financial service providers throughout the criminal justice system; and governments are shifting the cost of incarceration to people who are incarcerated and their families via efforts that result in forcing individuals to pay for charges related to court operations, a court-appointed public defender, drug testing and the prison library.
The CFPB indicated the organization would continue to use its tools such as rulemaking, supervision, enforcement, research, and consumer engagement to promote financial marketplace fairness across the board.