Journal article
The influence of legal financial obligations (LFOs) on probation violations: does type of LFO matter?
Journal of crime & justice
2026
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Community corrections is commonly proposed as one avenue to reduce incarceration rates. Shifting punishment from correctional facilities to probation, parole, and other non-custodial sanctions is one potential – but not foolproof – method of decarceration. In this paper, we contribute another data point to an increasingly significant threat to the promise of community corrections as a true alternative to incarceration: legal financial obligations (LFOs) incurred through court processing and, uniquely for community corrections, the punishment itself. We analyze how LFOs correlate with supervision violation hearings, the formal rule infractions initiated by probation officers that can be the first in a series of escalating sanctions that, ultimately, can result in incarceration. Using an administrative dataset of cases sentenced to probation in two Pennsylvania counties, we explore associations across assessment types, assessment amounts, and counties featuring distinct policy contexts to identify the specific circumstances in which LFOs can initiate these possible backchannels to confinement. We advance the literature by revealing that LFOs specifically incurred by community corrections sentences (as well as restitution) are positively and consistently linked with the likelihood of a probation violation hearing, suggesting that LFOs and their enforcement may complicate the goal of reducing incarceration through community corrections.
Metrics
1 Record Views
Details
- Title
- The influence of legal financial obligations (LFOs) on probation violations: does type of LFO matter?
- Creators
- Kathleen Powell - Drexel UniversityNathan Link - Rutgers, The State University of New JerseyJordan Hyatt - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Journal of crime & justice
- Publisher
- TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC
- Number of pages
- 20
- Grant note
- Arnold Ventures
The work was supported by Arnold Ventures.
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Criminology and Justice Studies; Center for Public Policy; Center for Science, Technology, and Society
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:001688573500001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-105030034246
- Other Identifier
- 991022163919904721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Criminology & Penology
- Law