This is an everyday thing.
I probably don't have enough gas. And the starter's gone out on it, so, you gotta do
this every time you want to leave in that car.
And we was just going to the gas station. They pulled us over and they wrote me a seat
belt ticket, and it came out to be $41. I didn't have no money to pay, so they charged
me $10 to put me on JCS probation. And JCS it's... I don't get why they're in the picture
-this is between me and the courts, not another business.
There is an entire industry devoted to making money off of people who can't pay. Normally
an offender is put on probation to make sure that they're not posing a threat to public
safety. If they're not going to be put into prison. But we see a lot of courts really
just hiring probation companies because they want to hire a debt collector, and calling it probation.
Judicial correction services is a private company that allegedly provides private probation
services -essentially, they're a collection agency. Private probation companies don't
charge the courts they work for -instead, they bill the people they supervise directly
-in fees, every month that they are on probation.
That's how they make profits.
We found widespread abuses plaguing this whole industry. Ignoring evidence that people are
actually making heroic efforts to pay down their debts.
Is that all the money you've got? All of it.
Being poor has never been a crime in this country.
And yet, we are still throwing people into prison for owing money and not paying it back.
I've heard of people going to jail for not paying their fines. That's one thing around
here that will get you in jail quick is not paying your probation. They will come get
you for that quicker than not paying your child support.
Probation is supposed to be a way to keep people out of prison who don't really belong
there. Private probation really turns all of that on its head.
It's essentially a debtor's prison. Pretty much all of Colombiana is in there. Just about
everybody I know has had to -and still are going through it.
Yeah, every time you go to court it's like a family reunion.
One of the really perverse things is that often the poorest communities are the best
markets for them. In a place where people really struggle, people wind up on probation
in large numbers and for very long periods of time.
And that translates into big money in fees for probation companies.
So when profit becomes the driving force, civil rights get thrown under the bus.
That's just about as far as I can get it from the inside. I have to have help getting it
the rest of the way.
Colombiana is a very small town. There's just a lot of land and roads, and what stores we
do have -there's not really that many.
I've applied for Fred's, Piggly Wiggly, Target -I would love to have a job, so I won't be
broke all the time.
JCS adds on thirty five dollars every month. Even if you're making progress on it, or not.
That's almost impossible when you are 17 with no income. I live with my mom and my sisters
and my two nephews, and my mom is on disability. She pays all of the bills and if she can give
me anything, she will give me a little bit to put towards my ticket, but there's usually
not much left.
$40 is very hard to come by. And once you get $40 or something like that around here,
usually you put that in gas to get where you need to be.
We're looking at offenders who would not be on probation at all if they had more money.
They actually wind up paying more than a person of means, over time. And faced with the continual
risk of incarceration if they fall behind on their payments.
Here is the actual ticket I got -I paid $10. Fees: $35, and fees -balance: $41. And it
shows that it went towards my fees, and my fine stayed the same.
This one right here shows I paid another $10. Shows that the fees went down, but the fine
is still $41. I've told the judge that I have the money to pay for the ticket, and I couldn't
afford the rest of the fees. And he said that wasn't his problem, that I could just put
that $41 towards the probation. And then, I got another one that shows I paid $41 even,
and the fine has not been touched, not one time, all the money I've paid.
You see this paper right here, it says a payment is needed. If you fail to appear, a warrant
will be issued for your arrest.
A lot of companies in the private probation industry are run by people who are former
law enforcement. JCS is run by a man named Robert McMichael, who is a former sheriff
and US marshall. And there's no question that those connections often pave the way to them
getting the business that they get.
The system is horribly broken. If you can't pay, you're poor, then you're going to be
placed in the hands of JCS, threatened with jail, and in many times -jailed.
Hundreds of people locked up - A thousand every month in Alabama because
they cannot afford to pay - It was either pay, or go to jail.
They threatened me with jail - The New York Times quote, "There are real
constitutional issues at stake".
There are two federal lawsuits that are going on against JCS -we're challenging that whole
system. The fact that these people were indigent, that they were forced to pay additional fines
and then were ultimately jailed because they couldn't pay these fines that were demanded by JCS.
I have to go back to court and I have to figure out how to come up with half of it right then,
and I cannot leave the building until I do. Or, I will be locked up.
I'm not trying to get out of my ticket, I was guilty. I deserved the ticket. But all
this probation fees they tack on -I can't afford it. And I'd just really like to be
able to pay it and be done with it.
Georgia passed a law transferring probation services to the counties -and that allowed
them to privatize their probation services for misdemeanor crimes.
Put behind bars for being poor. That's how a group of local attorneys described arrest
warrants requested by Sentinel Offender Services for misdemeanor offenders.
We're all basically low income. We live paycheck to paycheck. My husband and I, we've been
married 32 years. We have two daughters, and that's my younger daughter when she was probably
about five. In 2006 I was pulled over for DUI. I was sentenced to Colombia County, I
sat there for eight months. Sentinel put me on two years probation. 2008, my probation
was over. I paid my fine. In 2012, Labor Day Weekend, a police officer pulled in.
I was walking my dogs around the front of that trailer. The officer come in here and
he got out and he asked me to stop. And then he come back saying there's a hold on me in
Colombia county, and I said "For what?" and he said "violation of probation."
I'd been off probation for four years. I said, no officer, I believe you're making a really
bad mistake. He says, well I still have to take her in. And that's when I sat in Colombia
county for 20 days.
Judge Danny Craig asked Sentinel, "Why is she still on probation when she was off four
years ago?".
And they had took it upon themselves to reinstate me, without a judge's order or anything -back
on probation.
Just to get the monthly fee.
He sent me home. I was off. I was off of it. But my husband still had to pay $156 dollars.
That makes you scared. You wonder about going in a grocery store, or just out walking your
dog. A police officer might come by and arrest you again. I do realize I shouldn't have been
drinking and driving, and that I did make a mistake, and I did pay for it.
But they want to drag it out and drag it out, just for their profit. And there's so many
out there that they're using like that.
A disabled Augusta veteran locked up because he couldn't pay a fee, to get that turned
into jail time. And blamed Sentinel offender services. Three people currently jailed in
Richmond County are joining the legal fight against Sentinel. Ten thousand Richmond county
residents with outstanding arrest warrants taken out by Sentinel.
When I walked out of the court room, after that twenty days, a lawyer was waiting outside
for me. And he said, "You know they were holding you illegally?"
And I'd like to really talk to you. So here we are talking about a lady that stayed in
the Colombia county jail for about twenty days at fifty dollars a day. It cost the county
a thousand dollars, it cost the lady her freedom. So Sentinel could collect $157? I mean, that's
what we're dealing with.
Sentinel is a big company, but it's family held. The owner of the company is Bob Contestable.
His son Mark is largely responsible for running the company's for-profit probation business
out of Georgia. Many company officials are quite eager to blame the courts. The reality
is that they have an enormous amount of discretion in their day to day interactions with the
people they supervise. And many of the decisions they make are not done in consultation with
the courts at all. There's a lot of power that the courts delegate, sometimes improperly,
to these companies. But the companies have a very direct responsibility for all of this
as well.
Wave for the camera. She just got married, she just got back from the Carribean. So I
must pay them pretty well because they can do that. I'm Dale Allen, I'm the Chief Probation
Officer of Athens-Clarke County Probation Services. Overall, I've been in the criminal
justice field for over 35 years.
One of the contributing factors is deciding to transition to Private Probation from Government
Probation was a request of the judges for more accountability, more transparency. We
believe we're 100% transparent. All my records are open, my fines, my fees, where my money
goes, my budget is open record.
I don't feel any pressure whatsoever to collect a certain amount of fees, we are not here
to make a profit. The concept of locking people up for money goes against every instinct that
I have as a manager of probation. I actually call it the Economics of Doing the Right Thing.
If they can not pay, they legitimately cannot pay, then it's to the community's best interest,
in our government's best interest, to work with them any way you can short of incarcerating them.
I think that most people like to imagine that in 21st century America, there is no such
thing as a debtor's prison any more. That's not true. There are people in courts all across
this country losing their freedom not just because they are unable to come up with money
to pay for a fine, but because they're falling behind on a private, for-profit company that
has been allowed to collect fees from them.
JCS, Sentinel, their interest is to make money. Not serve the judicial system.
Without question, the most urgent need is for laws at the state level that impose strict
oversight and accountability on these companies.
And the situations where they can and shouldn't be able to collect fines from people.
They don't show like they care about people. Even if you're trying.
Y'know, to do what's right.
They don't help nobody. There's really no purpose for them to get money.
We have to go by the laws. And I feel they aught to, too.
Who do they have to answer to, for doing wrong?