Interest Charges on Court Fees & Fines

We began the session looking to pass policies that help formerly incarcerated people succeed when they return home. Removing re-entry barriers reduces recidivism, increases public safety, and helps lower the tremendous cost of incarceration.

Thanks to the enormous efforts of our members, we were able to organize legislative forums in Portland, Salem and Eugene which were very well attended by the community and legislators.

Early in the session, Senator Vicki Walker was very impressed by the community forum in Eugene and by our report Access Denied in Oregon. She introduced SB 629 designed to prevent interest from accruing on court fees and fines while someone is incarcerated. The existing law charged people 12% interest on their judgments while they were incarcerated. This posed major problems as people’s court-created debt ballooned while they were incarcerated and clearly unable to pay. People released from prison often had massive debt. 

During the session we helped insert the language of SB 629 into another bill, HB 2311, which also dealt with court settlements. Both bills moved forward, gaining significant bi-partisan support. HB 2311 passed the Senate a day before SB 629 was about to pass the House. HB 2311 not only prevents interest from accruing on court fees, fines and/or restitution while someone is incarcerated, the law also allows State Court Administrators and judges to waive interest altogether for “good cause shown.” Additionally, the law ensures all payments will first go toward paying off the principal before going toward interest which will allow the debt to be paid off much faster. This law will be applied to all judgments made after July 1, 2007.