Courting Justice Ohio: About

Courting Justice Ohio is a year long initiative to engage criminal justice stakeholders and residents on the reforms needed and already underway to address the disproportionate impact of fines, fees and bail on the poor. The initiative includes self-organized community discussions across Ohio using the Courting Justice Ohio Discussion Guide, private discussion groups organized by ideastream in Northeast Ohio, and City Club of Cleveland forums.

The foundation for this initiative is a televised forum hosted on December 8, 2016 by Tavis Smiley and the National Center for State Courts, in partnership with ideastream and The City Club of Cleveland, which put judges in direct dialogue with the communities they serve. The focus of the forum was on how various forms of payment required by the courts (e.g. fines, fees, bail) to either punish offenders, support operating court costs or incentivize defendants’ release before trial affect people who cannot pay those costs at a far greater rate than those who can.

The goals of this initiative include:

• raising awareness of the disproportionate impact of fines, fees and bail on the poor
• encouraging statewide, self-organized dialogues on the issue
• collecting responses and reform ideas from discussion participants across the state and identifying key themes in these discussions for policy consideration

The initiative is led by ideastream, in partnership with The City Club of Cleveland and with support from the Cleveland Foundation.