[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3133 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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114th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 3133

To amend the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 to 
    require States to report on the administration of certain fees.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              July 6, 2016

  Mr. Casey (for himself and Mr. Whitehouse) introduced the following 
    bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the 
                               Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 to 
    require States to report on the administration of certain fees.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Juvenile Fee Transparency Act''.

SEC. 2. STATE PLANS.

    Section 223(a) of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 
Act of 1974 (42 U.S.C. 5633(a)) is amended--
            (1) in paragraph (27), by striking ``and'' at the end;
            (2) in paragraph (28), by striking the period at the end 
        and inserting a semicolon; and
            (3) by adding at the end the following:
            ``(29) provide information on--
                    ``(A) whether courts or any other responsible 
                governmental agency in the State collect payments for--
                            ``(i) probation or supervision;
                            ``(ii) diversion programming, including 
                        informal adjustment, informal probation, 
                        consent decrees, or other alternatives to 
                        formal juvenile justice processing and 
                        adjudication;
                            ``(iii) placement, including detention at a 
                        ranch, camp, secure incarceration, and 
                        nonsecure post-adjudication placements or group 
                        homes;
                            ``(iv) court administrative costs;
                            ``(v) evaluation or testing, including drug 
                        and substance abuse testing and mental health 
                        testing;
                            ``(vi) fines, assessments, or fees imposed 
                        only when a juvenile is adjudicated delinquent;
                            ``(vii) expungement or sealing of juvenile 
                        records;
                            ``(viii) representation by a public 
                        defender or a court-appointed counsel;
                            ``(ix) victim restitution; and
                            ``(x) electronic monitoring, GPS 
                        monitoring, or home detention;
                    ``(B) the dollar amount ordered to be paid by the 
                court or other governmental agency in charging and 
                collecting the fee in the previous fiscal year for each 
                of the categories of payments described in subparagraph 
                (A);
                    ``(C) the dollar amount recovered in the previous 
                fiscal year under each of the categories of payments 
                described in subparagraph (A);
                    ``(D) the dollar amount still outstanding as of the 
                end of the previous fiscal year for each of the 
                categories of payments described in subparagraph (A);
                    ``(E) whether juveniles or their legal guardians 
                receive a hearing to determine their ability to pay any 
                charges under the categories of payments described in 
                subparagraph (A); and
                    ``(F) whether juveniles or their legal guardians, 
                during any such hearings described in subparagraph (E), 
                have a right to counsel for such hearings.''.

SEC. 3. REPORT.

    Not later than 1 year after the data reported under the amendments 
made by section 2 is made available to the Administrator of the Office 
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Comptroller General 
of the United States, in coordination with the Administrator, shall 
submit to Congress a report on--
            (1) differences in the administration and collection of 
        fees across jurisdictions, across racial demographics, and 
        across income levels, including fee amounts, collection costs, 
        and the use of hearings to determine the ability to pay of 
        juveniles or their legal guardians;
            (2) the extent to which differences in the administration 
        and collection of fees across jurisdictions affects or is 
        associated with differences in the rates and types of juvenile 
        involvement in the justice system and rates of recidivism 
        across those jurisdictions; and
            (3) the extent to which the failure to pay fees by 
        juveniles or their legal guardians results in detention or 
        confinement not otherwise ordered, exclusion from diversion 
        programming or failure to expunge or seal a juvenile record.
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