“I Wish I Had Better Answers”: Organizational Ignorance in US Criminal Courts

ABSTRACT Systems of monetary sanctions in US criminal courts present an opportunity for furthering the sociological understanding of complex and consequential organizations. We examine whether and how court actors across eight states understand the organizational processes supporting the fiscal logic of legal financial obligations (LFOs). We engage with scholarship on the sociology of organizations to explore how court organizational structures and processes foster defensive ignorance among court actors implementing state policy to recoup operational costs. Our findings reveal that siloing and routines facilitate substantial ignorance regarding the overall operation of LFOs. Court actors often deny responsibility for their ignorance, particularly concerning the assessment of defendants' indigence, leading to inertia in addressing negative consequences. We discuss the implications of this ignorance, especially for the assessment of indigence, which is intended to mitigate the adverse effects of monetary sanctions but is rarely applied in practice.