Illinois second in local fines and forfeitures – Center Square

“The problem we were trying to map was trying to understand the extent extent to which local governments rely on court and law enforcement revenues to fund their governments,” said Vittorio Nastasi, of the Reason Foundation. “And that can obviously create some perverse incentives when you have courts funding themselves by imposing penalties on people or attaching fees to cases that are, you know, unrelated to the severity of an offense and the way that penalties usually are."