One of the highlight compromises this legislative session is a deal to raise the felony larceny threshold. The flip side of that deal is a crackdown on restitution. That’s the out of pocket costs criminals are often ordered to pay to their victims. And in Virginia it often goes uncollected and unpaid.
Brad Haywood is a criminal defense attorney in Northern Virginia. Often his clients are ordered to pay up as part of their punishments.
“Anywhere from a few hundred dollars, maybe for a stolen phone or a pair of earrings. All the way up to several hundred thousand dollars, maybe like an embezzlement scheme,” explains Haywood.
According to the state crime commission, much of that money never gets collected. At last count, more than $420 million is still owed. Republican Delegate Rob Bell says it’s partially because the system is unaccountable.
“Nobody took it as their job to make sure restitution gets paid. And every other actor had lots of other tasks and didn’t want to make this one of their priorities,” Bell said. “The victim walks out assuming that everything is right with the world and they will at least get paid as soon as the defendant gets out of jail. And it just isn’t happening.”
So Bell is sponsoring a bill to try to fix that. It would require courts bring defendants who still owe money back in on a regular basis, for up to ten years.
Bell says it will create more accountability.
“(A judge) will say ‘You have that bill, but you have to pay by Dec. 31st and if you haven’t paid by Dec 31st I’m going to see you on Dec. 31st,” describes Bell.
Defendants would have to show up and demonstrate a good faith effort towards paying. If they don’t judges could punish them further, even give them jail time.
Bell has tried something similar before, but it was vetoed by then-Governor Terry McAuliffe. This year Democrats are supporting Bell’s bill as part of a criminal justice deal.
In return Democrats get something they’ve wanted for a long time -- an increase in the felony larceny threshold.
“In this case the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia do not benefit from the quote, unquote, deal,” says Director of Virginia’s ACLU, Claire Gastanaga.
It's not like there are a bunch of people out there who just simply have all this money and aren't paying it because no one is asking them to pay it.
Gastanaga says if Virginia actually wanted to collect restitution money, lawmakers shouldn’t ask the overburdened criminal court system to do it. Instead, lawmakers should require courts treat restitution like credit card debt.
“Then they become collectible using civil means. So if somebody’s working and they’re just purposefully not paying, then you can garnish their wages just like collecting any other debt,” she says. “We’re not using any of those mechanisms.”
What’s more, Gastanaga argues, it doesn’t make any sense to punish someone who can’t pay by putting them in jail.
Because the system is so fragmented, there’s no clear data on why restitution often goes unpaid. But Brad Haywood, the criminal defense attorney, says that in his experience most people who still owe money are poor.
“It’s not like there are a bunch of people out there who just simply have all this money and aren’t paying it because no one is asking them to pay it,” Haywood says. “Most of them honestly just can’t pay it.”
But Delegate Rob Bell says victims can’t necessarily pay the bills either, but right now they often have to.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
