RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Monetary Sanctions and Housing Instability
JF RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
FD Russell Sage Foundation
SP 57
OP 75
DO 10.7758/RSF.2022.8.2.03
VO 8
IS 2
A1 Mary Pattillo
A1 Erica Banks
A1 Brian Sargent
A1 Daniel J. Boches
YR 2022
UL http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/8/2/57.abstract
AB The relationship between criminal legal involvement and housing is complex because the causal arrow goes both ways. Research documents a homelessness-incarceration nexus whereby homelessness is criminalized, and incarceration leads to homelessness. In this article, we broaden the scope of housing outcomes by considering housing instability more generally and we shift the focus to legal financial obligations (LFOs) as a specific kind of criminal legal sanction, apart from incarceration or the effects of a record. Our data consist of surveys and qualitative interviews with people paying LFOs (N = 519), interviews with court actors (N = 443), and more than 1,900 hours of courtroom ethnography in eight states, plus nationally representative survey data. We find substantial evidence of a housing instability-LFO nexus, a caustic churn whereby a population with identifiable housing hardships is saddled with a punishment that deepens financial strain and thus weakens housing stability.