My question involves criminal law for the state of: Washington
On June 14th me and some friends got caught shoplifting (dumb I know, not gonna go in to it, I did a dumb thing and I'm not doing it again, so please don't come lecture me), and the total for each of us came to like.. 35$ or something. also, we are all 17. this is my first ever offense, so i'm pretty stressed, i've never had to deal with this stuff. anyways, they questioned us, got our info, called our rents, but the police dispatch time was THREE HOURS, so they decided not to press charges, so no police, no court date, if we steal again we are banned from walmart, but we can still go back. but they said we are still going to have to pay a civil fine, etcetcetc.
my questions are, do we HAVE to pay this fine? (we will, we are good people, i'm just wondering if we have to by law?)
also, when will i hear about this? we haven't gotten a phonecall or a letter, and i've heard a lot of stuff about people getting calls from 800 numbers asking for 150$ and sounding like a scam and whatnot.
any references like actual laws and other peoples stories would be really helpful too!
and we are not going to "avoid it and take it to court" , thats stupid.
thank you!

