The Untold Costs of Booking Fees
Consider this hypothetical. You are arrested for a suspected parole violation. You are brought into the county jail where you are “booked.” You are searched, photographed, fingerprinted, and your information is entered into a computer database. You sit in jail overnight. After some investigation, it turns out that you did not violate the conditions of your parole after all. Rather, your court-issued monitoring equipment malfunctioned and errantly issued a warrant for a purported violation. The charges are dropped and you are free to return home. You think you can put the situation behind you; but then, days later, a bill arrives in the mail from the county. They are charging you a fee to cover the administrative costs of booking you into jail. You must now pay for your own wrongful arrest.
Across the country, jails charge arrestees “booking fees” of $30, $50, or even $100, disregarding the presumption of innocence. Often, jail officials confiscate any money on your person at the time of booking, which they then apply against the booking fee you owe for the “service” they claim to have rendered—namely, arresting and booking you into jail. Regardless of whether you have your charges dropped or are ultimately found to have been innocent, as in the hypothetical above, the county often keeps the booking fee. The government’s rationale for this is simple—cost recovery. Running a jail is expensive, and defraying costs and shifting the burden from taxpayers to “criminals” is a popular policy.
This practice woefully overlooks the presumption of innocence. A booking fee is charged before a guilty plea is entered or a judgment is rendered. Since the fee is tied to the administrative actions that follow arrest, not to the outcome of the case, thousands of people annually are forced to pay fees for no reason other than being suspected of a crime.
For someone with a steady paycheck, suddenly being liable for an unexpected $50 fee may be no more than an annoyance. But for those experiencing homelessness or living paycheck to paycheck, this can be the first step into a devastating spiral of debt and further interaction with the criminal legal system. Unfortunately, most jurisdictions do not factor in ability to pay when imposing booking fees, further undermining their shaky legal basis.
Fortunately, the practice of requiring potentially innocent individuals to cover costs associated with their arrest or incarceration is facing growing scrutiny. In 2020, California became the first state to eliminate criminal administrative fees, including booking fees. Local governments have also taken the initiative to stop charging these fees. Washtenaw County, Michigan, has taken steps to eliminate booking fees and has joined a group of likeminded local governments across the country as part of an organization called Cities and Counties for Fine and Fee Justice, which seeks to offer guidance to local governments exploring the idea of finding more just funding mechanisms for their local court systems.
Equal Justice Under Law has recently entered the fight against booking fees. On January 22, 2026, we filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin challenging the constitutionality of the booking fees imposed by Jefferson County, Wisconsin. There, county officials impose a booking fee of nearly $30 on those arrested on suspicion of violating their parole. Those arrested on suspicion of committing a non-parole-related offense are not charged a booking fee. These fees are imposed irrespective of ability to pay, prior to any opportunity to be heard in court, and are not refunded if the charges are dropped or the arrestee is later adjudicated not guilty.
Our mission is to fight to achieve equality in the criminal legal system and help to end cycles of poverty. Booking fees directly contravene that mission. By imposing a financial cost on the mere act of being arrested, local officials are ensuring that low-income individuals—already overrepresented in the carceral system—are further entrenched in a cycle of poverty. Eliminating booking fees is a critical part of the fight to realize a more just justice system.