Justice Paid In Full
Written in collaboration with Just Leadership USA and Americans for Financial Reform, Building the Table: The Cost of Conviction focuses on financial system access—opening bank accounts, using digital platforms, securing credit, and building wealth. It illustrates how reentry must be understood not only through the lens of criminal punishment but also through systemic financial exclusion. The co-production of harm by legal systems (policing, bail, sentencing) and financial systems (predatory lending, debt surveillance, credit scoring) uniquely impacts Black and Brown communities by criminalizing poverty and enforcing exclusion from economic life.
Financial harm is a key factor in the U.S. criminal justice system. Guided by lived experience, this paper envisions a system of financial justice—one where fairness, accountability, and access anchor reentry, and financial institutions work to repair harm rather than reproduce it.
