Sentinel Offender Services boasts that since 1992 its offender-funded programs have saved public agencies “hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars.”15 Courts that use private probation companies include a condition in probationers’ sentences requiring them to pay all fees the company is entitled to levy against them in full. Failing to pay a probation company its money thus becomes a violation of probation conditions just as serious as failing to pay court-ordered fines. As this report shows, in practice if not in theory, the privatization of probation often means delegating a significant amount of the courts’ coercive power to probation companies as well.
Scale and Economics of the Industry Hundreds of thousands of Americans are sentenced to probation with private companies every year by well over 1,000 courts across the US. In Georgia, a state of less than 10 million people, 648 courts assigned more than 250,000 cases to private probation companies in 2012.16 In Tennessee, probation companies supervised a minimum of 50,000 offenders that year, and probably at least 80,000.17 Probation companies in Alabama work with well over 100 courts across the state.18 And in Mississippi, leading firm Judicial Correction Services expanded aggressively into new markets in the Mississippi Delta region, including some of the poorest counties in the country, before abruptly pulling out of the state altogether in December 2013.19 The industry also has deep roots in Florida, the first state to allow privatized probation services, and a significant presence in courts across at least a dozen states all told.20 The most robust markets for offender-funded
15 Sentinel Probation Services, “Probation & Court Services,” undated, http://sentrak.com/probation_and_court/ (accessed
December 4, 2013). 16 Data from Open Records Request to Georgia’s County and Municipal Probation Advisory Council (CMPAC), on file with
Human Rights Watch. 17 Tennessee’s Private Probation Services Council does not track these figures, but does require each probation company
active in the state to pay it a $1 quarterly fee for each probationer on their rolls. Companies paid $149,284 during the first three quarters of 2013. The figure of 80,000 probationers assumes only a modest degree of turnover during that period; the figure of 50,000 assumes no turnover at all. Private Probation Services Council, “FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions,” undated, http://www.tn.gov/regboards/privatepro/FAQ.shtml (accessed January 27, 2014). 18 Judicial Correction Services alone works in about 100 Alabama courts. Other companies also operate across the state but
not at anything near the scale of JCS’ operations. Human Rights Watch interview with probation company officials, Tucker, Georgia, October 10, 2013. 19 Human Rights Watch interviews, Mississippi, June 2013. Also see below, Squeezing Water from a Stone. 20 Probation companies provide offender-funded misdemeanor probation services in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Missouri, Michigan, Montana and Idaho. This is not necessarily an exhaustive list of all states where the industry exists.
PROFITING FROM PROBATION
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