The impact of being arrested, no matter what the final outcome, can take a lifelong toll on someone’s finances, employment status and professional network. As police budgets and arrests increase each year, more and more people are facing consequences from entering the legal system whether or not they were convicted.
The pressure on police officers to arrest
The Tough on Crime era in the 1980s and ‘90s set expectations on police officers to make more arrests. The goal was to increase convictions and crack down on crime.
Spending on law enforcement reached $212 billion in 2011, compared to adjusted-for-inflation rates of $179 billion in 2001 and $128 billion in 1992. That same year the number of state and local police officers reached 646,213, up from 531,706 in 1991.
That spending increase is having a direct impact on the number of bookings. A University of South Carolina study found that over 40 percent of the male subjects had been arrested at least once by age 23. One in five women had been arrested. The study also showed that 47 percent of those arrested weren’t convicted, and more than a quarter of the cases didn’t even involve formal charges.
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When a study shows that almost half of all arrests are not ending in convictions, it should be an indication to law enforcement that simply emphasizing arrests might not attack the root of the problem. Considering the lifelong impact those arrests can have even when the person is innocent of the crime, the strategy is worth re-evaluating.
However, law enforcement is bound to act within the law, and political criminal justice reform is slow. Plus, arrests are never going to be 100 percent accurate – there will always be those who end up with an arrest record without being convicted. It hurts our economy to disqualify them from employment because of a minor crime they committed a decade ago.
As we look at the associated costs and consequences of being arrested, it is extremely important to keep in mind the fact that over half of these arrests don’t lead to convictions.
The immediate costs of being arrested
An arrest for a crime committed has an immediate and commonly known cost – bail.
The average cost of bail for felonies is $55,400, and while the average cost of bail for misdemeanors is not nationally recorded, a Human Rights Watch study estimated that it is typically $1000 or less.
Despite the fact that $1,000 is relatively low compared to felonies, it’s still beyond the reach of many low-income families. The study reported that the “overwhelming” majority of defendants are jailed because they cannot pay their bail and, depending on how long they have to wait until trial, this can have other significant costs.
If the bail is not paid, and the defendant is in jail for longer than a few days, the defendant risks losing employment. Most employers will not tolerate a leave of absence for jailing, and without that income, the arrestee is likely to lose their housing or anything else dependent upon their income.
If the defendant goes to court to argue the charges, there are court fees to be paid. A 2015 study by the Ella Baker Center revealed that the average debt incurred for court-related fines and fees is $13,607. This can leave many low-income families in debt for decades after the court process has ended.
The long-term costs of being arrested
Even still, the cost of bail and court can be less than what an arrest can do to someone later in life.
An arrest, no matter the charges (if there are any) or trial results, leads to a record – which can be more difficult to clear than people realize. The process varies by state, but can involve filing petitions, filling out mountains of paperwork, paying fines, getting fingerprinted and waiting for approval.
If not cleared, a bad record permanently affects the person’s chances for employment and, worse still, clearing a record doesn’t mean erasing it from history.
The fingerprints taken at the time of arrest can end up in systems that disqualify people from governmental employment, and the mug shot can end up all over the Internet for potential employers to see after a simple Google search.
Our take
So, we need to review the current policies for arrest records, including public access and expungement processes. A mug shot should not be available to anyone with Internet access. There are far too many false arrests for that to be fair. Moreover, arrest records should be able to be expunged fully, with the fees waived for families that cannot afford to pay.
High-income families are not the only ones who deserve a clean record for past mistakes. Arrests don’t need to be walks in the park, but it doesn’t do anyone any good if the process completely devastates people’s lives socially, emotionally and financially.
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