How Private Probation Companies Make Money From the Those They Trap in the Justice System

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/how-private-probation-companies-make-money-those-they-trap-justice-system

Marietta Conner watched the judge expectantly. The 63-year-old assistant minister had just pled guilty to “fail[ing] to yield to a pedestrian”—a criminal misdemeanor in Georgia—and did not have enough money to pay her $140 fine. The judge ordered that she be put on probation. But instead of county probation, Conner was assigned a private probation company supposed to mimic normal court probabation: meet with her once a month through a probation officer, collect payments and confirm her work and address. In the end, the company sapped Conner of well over the original amount of the fine, and even dangled an arrest warrant over her head when it erroneously claimed she had missed a payment.

Conner was lucky. She knew someone at the Southern Center for Human Rights who helped her escape the trap the correctional corporation tried to put her in. Yet for hundreds of thousands of others on probation through a private company, the experience routinely entails prolonged harassment, indebtedness and even imprisonment—and sometimes all with the blessing of a judge.

To be ensnared in America’s system of mass incarceration is to be in prison, on parole, or on probation. In 2012 1 in every 35 American adults was trapped in the criminal justice system. The surging number of people whose lives necessitate constant surveillance and management has exploded the coffers of state and federal budgets, and rather than reform heavy-handed laws to ease this burden on public funds, elected leaders have contracted incarceration services out to companies with a moneyed interest in jailing more Americans.

The private prison industry has stoked the outrage of progressives and civil libertarians for years, as has the practice of prosecutors pushing plea bargains with heavy parole, but an equally dangerous phenomenon is the rise of private probation businesses across the country. Since the 1970s, the private probation industry has expanded into at least 20 states—most concentrated in the South—and nearly all of its companies are entirely supported by the fees paid to them by the probationers they “serve.” In the last few years, many of these businesses have been given more power to pursue and imprison probationers, playing a starring role in what one federal judge called a “ judicially sanctioned extortion racket.”

[Overseas]

1. K&R. Didn't even imagine probation would also be privatized.

Hope we can undo the privatization of prisons and probation.

[duhneece]

5. I didn't realize that either

And I'm really, personally aware of the private prison industry. Thank you X.

[arcane1]

7. And they say crime doesn't pay!

[El_Johns]

10. I didn't either. Everything is being hollowed out by capital. We're paying taxes to corporations.

It's absolutely fucked.

[mtasselin]

2. greed

Greed is destroying America, when we privatize things that means that someone is coming to do something for a profit and that is insanity.

[old man 76]

3. How true

The Republicans believe in privatizing every thing with no rules and no regulations. To the Republican its money and that is their God.

[bemildred]

4. Yes, our justice system has been turned into a revenue stream. nt

[El_Johns]

11. Yes, I now read there are even privatized PROBATION companies.

[bemildred]

12. Yep, it's all about the money.

I get depressed every time I serve on a jury and see how pathetic our "justice system" has become.

[PotatoChip]

6. Reading this put me in mind of a BookTv program

that I had seen about a year ago titled 'The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness' by Michelle Alexander. So, I found it on their site and listened to the program again. Professor Alexander makes a great case, using statistical analysis, that likens the current prison industrial complex to a caste-like system that disproportionately effects African Americans.

Here is a portion of a 'Democracy Now' interview about the book (a little over 6 minutes).

&list=PL2AC7AC8A92228708

But if one can find the time to watch the full CSpan video, I highly recommend it.

Here is CSpan's description:

About the Program

Michelle Alexander argues that the get-tough-on-crime policies that began in the early 1970s were enacted in an effort to push back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement. This effort, she says, has been successful. Prof. Alexander spoke at the University of Tennessee at an event hosted by the university's Africana Studies Program.

And here is a link to the program if anyone is interested:
http://www.booktv.org/Watch/14214/The+New+Jim+Crow+Mass+Incarceration+in+the+Age+of+Colorblindness.aspx

Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University. Prof. Alexander previously served as director of the Civil Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School and as director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California. For more, visit: newjimcrow.com

[arcane1]

8. It's an excellent book! Now I want to watch the program too.

Kicking for later viewing!!

[Overseas]

13. K&R. I want to watch this too.

[Comrade Grumpy]

9. This kind of shit should not be allowed. n/t