MR. CHIEF JUSTICE  BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.This appeal from Illinois presents an important question involving a claim of discriminatory treatment based upon financial inability to pay a fine and court costs imposed in a criminal case.  The narrow issue raised is whether an indigent may be continued in confinement beyond the maximum term specified by statute because of his failure to satisfy the monetary provisions of the sentence.  We noted probable jurisdiction [Footnote 1] and set the case for oral argument with No. 782, Morris v. Schoonfield, post, p.  399 U. S. 508, also decided today.On August 16, 1967, appellant was convicted of petty theft, and received the maximum sentence provided by state law:  one year imprisonment and a $500 fine. [Footnote 2]  Appellant was also taxed $5 in court costs.  The judgment directed, as permitted by statute, that, if appellant was in default of the payment of the fine and court costs at the expiration of the one-year sentence, he should remain in jail pursuant to § 1-7(k) of the Illinois Criminal Code to "work off" the monetary obligations at the rate of $5 per day. [Footnote 3]  Thus, whereas the maximum term of imprisonment for petty theft was one year, the effect of the sentence imposed here required appellant to be Page 399 U. S. 237 confined for 101 days beyond the maximum period of confinement fixed by the statute, since he could not pay the fine and costs of $505.On November 29, 1967, appellant, while still an inmate in the county jail, petitioned the sentencing judge [Footnote 4] to vacate that portion of the order requiring that he remain imprisoned upon expiration of his one-year sentence because of nonpayment of the fine and court costs.  Appellant alleged that he was indigent at all stages of the proceeding, was without funds or property to satisfy the money portion of the sentence, and that he would "be able to get a job and earn funds to pay the fine and costs if . . . released from jail upon expiration of his one-year sentence."  The State did not dispute the factual allegations, [Footnote 5] and the trial court granted the State's motion to dismiss the petition"for the reason that [appellant] was not legally entitled at that time to the relief requested . . . , because he still has time to serve on his jail sentence, and, when that sentence has been served, his financial ability to pay a fine might not be the same as it is of the date [of sentencing]. "Page 399 U. S. 238Appeal was taken directly to the Supreme Court of Illinois, which appears to have rejected any suggestion by the trial court that the petition was premature, and went on to decide appellant's constitutional claim on the merits.  It held that "there is no denial of equal protection of the law when an indigent defendant is imprisoned to satisfy payment of the fine."  People v. Williams, 41 Ill. 2d 511, 517, 244 N.E.2d 197, 200 (1969). [Footnote 6]In addition to renewing the constitutional argument rejected by the state courts, appellant advances a host of other claims [Footnote 7] which, in light of our disposition, we find unnecessary to reach or decide.  Appellant challenges the constitutionality of § 1-7(k) of the Illinois Criminal Code, and argues primarily that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits imprisonment of an indigent beyond the maximum term authorized by the statute governing the substantive offense when that imprisonment flows directly from his present inability to pay a fine and court costs.  In response, the State asserts its interest in the collection of revenues produced by payment of fines, and contends that a "work-off" system, as provided by § 1-7(k), is a rational means of implementing that policy.  That interest is substantial and legitimate, but, for present purposes, it is not unlike the State's interest in collecting a fine from an indigent person in circumstances where no imprisonment is included in the judgment.  The State argues further that the statute is not constitutionally infirm simply because the legislature could have achieved the same result Page 399 U. S. 239 by some other means.  With that general proposition, we have no quarrel, but that generality does not resolve the issue.As noted earlier, appellant's incarceration beyond the statutory maximum stems from separate, albeit related, reasons:  nonpayment of a fine and nonpayment of court costs.  We find that neither of those grounds can constitutionally support the type of imprisonment imposed here, but we treat the fine and costs together, because disposition of the claim on fines governs our disposition on costs. [Footnote 8]The custom of imprisoning a convicted defendant for nonpayment of fines date back to medieval England, [Footnote 9] and has long been practiced in this country.  At the present time, almost all States and the Federal Government have statutes authorizing incarceration under such circumstances.  Most States permit imprisonment beyond the maximum term allowed by law, and, in some, there is no limit on the length of time one may serve for nonpayment. [Footnote 10]  While neither the antiquity of a practice nor the fact of steadfast legislative and judicial adherence to it through the centuries insulates it from constitutional attack, these factors should be weighed in Page 399 U. S. 240 he balance. [Footnote 11]  Indeed, in prior cases, this Court seems to have tacitly approved incarceration to "work-off" unpaid fines.  See Hill v. Wampler, 298 U. S. 460 (1936); Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727 (1878). [Footnote 12]The need to be open to reassessment of ancient practices other than those explicitly mandated by the Constitution is illustrated by the present case, since the greatly increased use of fines as a criminal sanction has made nonpayment a major cause of incarceration in this country. [Footnote 13]  Default imprisonment has traditionally been justified on the ground that it is a coercive device to ensure obedience to the judgment of the court. [Footnote 14]  Thus, commitment for failure to pay has not been viewed as a part of the punishment or as an increase in the penalty; rather, it has been viewed as a means of enabling the court to enforce collection of money that a convicted defendant was obligated by the sentence to pay.  The additional imprisonment, it has been said, may always be avoided by payment of the fine. [Footnote 15]We conclude that, when the aggregate imprisonment exceeds the maximum period fixed by the statute, and Page 399 U. S. 241 results directly from an involuntary nonpayment of a fine or court costs we are confronted with an impermissible discrimination that rests on ability to pay, and, accordingly, we vacate the judgment below.Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956), marked a significant effort to alleviate discrimination against those who are unable to meet the costs of litigation in the administration of criminal justice.  In holding that the failure to provide an indigent criminal defendant with a trial transcript at public expense in order to prosecute an appeal was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause, this Court declared the "[t]here can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has."  Id. at  351 U. S. 19.  In the years since the Griffin case, the Court has had frequent occasion to reaffirm allegiance to the basic command that justice be applied equally to all persons. [Footnote 16]  Subsequent decisions of this Court have pointedly demonstrated that the passage of time has heightened, rather than weakened, the attempts to mitigate the disparate treatment of indigents in the criminal process. [Footnote 17]  Applying the teaching of the Griffin case here, we conclude that an indigent criminal defendant may not be imprisoned in default of payment of a fine beyond the maximum authorized by the statute regulating the substantive offense.A State has wide latitude in fixing the punishment for state crimes.  Thus, appellant doe not assert that Illinois could not have appropriately fixed the penalty, in the first instance, at one year and 101 days.  Nor has the claim been advanced that the sentence imposed was excessive in light of the circumstances of the commission of this particular offense.  However, once the State has Page 399 U. S. 242 defined the outer limits of incarceration necessary to satisfy its penological interests and policies, it may not then subject a certain class of convicted defendants to a period of imprisonment beyond the statutory maximum solely by reason of their indigency.It is clear, of course, that the sentence was not imposed upon appellant because of his indigency, but because he had committed a crime.  And the Illinois statutory scheme does not distinguish between defendants on the basis of ability to pay fines.  But, as we said in Griffin v. Illinois,  supra, "a law nondiscriminatory on its face may be grossly discriminatory in its operation."   Id. at  351 U. S. 17 n. 11.  Here, the Illinois statute, as applied to Williams, works an invidious discrimination solely because he is unable to pay the fine.  On its face, the statute extends to all defendants an apparently equal opportunity for limiting confinement to the statutory maximum simply by satisfying a money judgment.  In fact, this is an illusory choice for Williams or any indigent who, by definition, is without funds. [Footnote 18]  Since only a convicted person with access to funds can avoid the increased imprisonment, the Illinois statute, in operative effect, exposes only indigents to the risk of imprisonment beyond the statutory maximum.  By making the maximum confinement contingent upon one's ability to pay, the State has visited different consequences on two categories of persons, since the result is to make incarceration in excess of the statutory maximum applicable only to those without the requisite resources to satisfy the money portion of the judgment. [Footnote 19] Page 399 U. S. 243The mere fact that an indigent in a particular case may be imprisoned for a longer time than a non-indigent convicted of the same offense does not, of course, give rise to a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.  Sentencing judges are vested with wide discretion in the exceedingly difficult task of determining the appropriate punishment in the countless variety of situations that appear.  The Constitution permits qualitative differences in meting out punishment, and there is no requirement that two persons convicted of the same offense receive identical sentences.  Thus it was that, in Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241,  337 U. S. 247 (1949), we said:"The belief no longer prevails that every offence in a like legal category calls for an identical punishment, without regard to the past life and habits of a particular offender."Nothing in today's decision curtails the sentencing prerogative of a judge, because, as noted previously, the sovereign's purpose in confining an indigent beyond the statutory maximum is to provide a coercive means of collecting or "working out" a fine.  After having taken into consideration the wide range of factors underlying the exercise of his sentencing function, nothing we now hold precludes a judge from imposing on an indigent, as on any defendant, the maximum penalty prescribed by law.It bears emphasis that our holding does not deal with a judgment of confinement for nonpayment of a fine in the familiar pattern of alternative sentence of "$30 or 30 days."  We hold only that a State may not constitutionally imprison beyond the maximum duration fixed by statute a defendant who is financially unable to pay a fine.  A statute permitting a sentence of both imprisonment and fine cannot be parlayed into a longer term of imprisonment than is fixed by the statute, since to do so would be to accomplish indirectly as to an indigent that which cannot be done directly.  We have no Page 399 U. S. 244 occasion to reach the question whether a State is precluded in any other circumstances from holding an indigent accountable for a fine by use of a penal sanction.  We hold only that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the statutory ceiling placed on imprisonment for any substantive offense be the same for all defendants, irrespective of their economic status. [Footnote 20]The State is not powerless to enforce judgments against those financially unable to pay a fine; indeed, a different result would amount to inverse discrimination, since it would enable an indigent to avoid both the fine and imprisonment for nonpayment, whereas other defendants must always suffer one or the other conviction.It is unnecessary for us to canvass the numerous alternatives to which the State, by legislative enactment -- or judges within the scope of their authority -- may resort in order to avoid imprisoning an indigent beyond the statutory maximum for involuntary nonpayment of a fine or court costs.  Appellant has suggested several plans, some of which are already utilized in some State, while others resemble those proposed by various studies. [Footnote 21]  The State Page 399 U. S. 245 is free to choose from among the variety of solutions already proposed and, of course, it may devise new ones. [Footnote 22]We are not unaware that today's holding may place a further burden on States in administering criminal justice.  Perhaps a fairer and more accurate statement would be that new cases expose old infirmities which apathy or absence of challenge has permitted to stand.  But the constitutional imperatives of the Equal Protection Clause must have priority over the comfortable convenience of the status quo."Any supposed administrative inconvenience would be minimal, since . . . [the unpaid portion of the judgment] could be reached through the ordinary process of garnishment in the event of default."Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U. S. 305,  384 U. S. 310 (1966).Nothing we hold today limits the power of the sentencing judge to impose alternative sanctions permitted by Illinois law; the definition of such alternatives, if any, lies with the Illinois courts.  We therefore vacate the judgment appealed from and remand to the Supreme Court of Illinois for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.It is so ordered
U.S. Supreme CourtWilliams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235 (1970)Williams v. IllinoisNo 1089Argued April 22, 1970Decided June 29, 1970399 U.S. 235SyllabusAppellant was given the maximum sentence for petty theft under Illinois law of one year' imprisonment and a $500 fine, plus $5 in court costs.  The judgment, as permitted by statute, provided that, if, when the one-year sentence expired, he did not pay the monetary obligation, he had to remain in jail to work them off at the rate of $5 a day.  While in jail, appellant, alleging indigency, unsuccessfully petitioned the sentencing judge to vacate that portion of the order confining him to jail after the sentence expired, because of nonpayment of the fine and cost.  The Illinois Supreme Court rejected appellant's claim that the State statutory provision constituted discriminatory treatment against those unable to pay a fine and court costs, and affirmed the lower court's dismissal of appellant's petition, holding that "there is no denial of equal protection of the law when an indigent defendant is imprisoned to satisfy payment of the fine."Held:  Though a State has considerable latitude in fixing the punishment for state crime, and may impose alternative sanction, it may not, under the Equal Protection Clause, subject a certain class of convicted defendants to a period of Imprisonment beyond the statutory maximum solely by reason of their indigency.  Pp.  399 U. S. 239-245.41 Ill. 2d 511, 244 N.E.2d 197, vacated and remanded. Page 399 U. S. 236