GEORGIA'S FIVE LARGEST PROBATION COMPANIES
More than 80 probation providers – some private companies, some government offices — supervise misdemeanor cases across Georgia. But about 80 percent of the cases are supervised by the state’s 32 private probation companies. A handful of large private companies supervise cases for courts in multiple counties. The rest are mom-and-pops, supervising small caseloads with small staffs in Georgia’s small towns and rural areas.
Here’s a look at the state’s five largest probation companies based on cases opened and fines collected on behalf of courts in 2014:
Sentinel Offender Services
New cases in 2014: 41,056
Courts served: 73
Fines and surcharges collected for courts in 2014: $20.3 million
Judicial Correction Services
New cases in 2014: 28,591
Courts served: 20
Fines and surcharges collected for courts: $11.6 million
Professional Probation Services
New cases in 2014: 21,442
Courts served: 34
Fines and surcharges collected for courts in 2014: $10.9 million
Judicial Alternatives of Georgia
New cases in 2014: 19,788
Courts served: 96
Fines and surcharges collected for courts in 2014: $8.5 million
Southeast Corrections
New cases in 2014: 11,221
Courts served: 26
Fines and surcharges collected for courts in 2014: $6.5 million
Source: County and Municipal Probation Advisory Council, AJC Analysis
——-
Key developments for Georgia’s misdemeanor probation system
1991: State law authorizes city and county governments to operate misdemeanor probation departments using government staff or contracting with private probation companies.
2000: General Assembly limits state probation officers to felony cases, which required city and counties to take over supervision of all misdemeanor probation cases.
April 2014: Georgia Department of Audits releases report finding widespread failures in Georgia’s misdemeanor probation system.
April 2014: Gov. Nathan Deal vetoes misdemeanor probation bill passed by General Assembly, citing concerns about transparency and the audit’s findings.
Nov. 2014: Georgia Supreme Court upholds the use of private probation companies. But the court ruled that it is not legal for courts to “toll” cases, a widespread practice where misdemeanor probation sentences were put on hold if a probationer stopped reporting and could not be located. The ruling led to the dismissal of thousands of probation warrants.
Feb. 2015: Georgia Council on Criminal Justice Reform releases report calling for sweeping changes for misdemeanor probation.
Feb. 2015: House bill 310 is introduced at the General Assembly. The bill includes reforms recommended by the council.
For 17 years, Rick Eaton has earned a living as an enforcer for people convicted of Georgia’s least serious crimes.
Courts have hired Eaton’s company, Alternative Probation Services, to supervise those on misdemeanor probation. In essence, his company makes money by pushing people to follow a judge’s rules, whether it’s paying off a fine, working community service or going to DUI school.
“With the majority of the people, they would like to be able to come in here and do what they are supposed to do and get this behind them,” Eaton said. “We try to help them do that.”
But Alternative Probation Services and some other probation providers across Georgia have gotten away with failing to follow the rules themselves.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found that the state’s mixture of large, multi-state probation companies and tiny mom-and-pop providers have operated under a permissive system for years. State regulators often fail to take notice or sanction errant probation operations, and some local judges don’t properly oversee their probation providers or even follow the rules themselves.
As a result, people who have paid off tickets have been locked up on bad warrants, some have been charged too much or kept on probation too long, and those too poor to pay fines have been improperly threatened with warrants or jailed in violation of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
After operating for more than two decades with lax oversight, Georgia’s misdemeanor probation system now is on the verge of an overhaul. The Georgia General Assembly is considering a bill that would impose vast, new demands on it.
While some probation companies and judges support reforms, Eaton worries about what may be coming.
“I’m all about rules,” Eaton said. “But you can regulate an industry to death — and then what?”
Georgia’s unique approach
Misdemeanor probation companies have grown and prospered across Georgia because city and county courts require so many people to use probation services. Tens of thousands of low-income people who can’t afford traffic fines end up on probation, along with people guilty of higher-level misdemeanors: DUIs, shoplifting, possession of marijuana and some domestic violence charges.
As a result, Georgia reported the nation’s largest probation population at the end of 2013, with 514,000 cases. More than 300,000 of those were misdemeanors cases.
“We’re very quick to put people on probation for very, very minor offenses,” said Michael Shapiro, a criminal justice expert at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies.
Other states don’t handle their low-level offenses as Georgia does.
More than half the states classify minor traffic offenses as civil matters, not crimes, so probation isn’t even a possibility. Georgia has pondered decriminalizing minor traffic offenses with high-profile study commissions, but the state has never followed through.
The other states that classify traffic offenses as misdemeanors take a different approach than Georgia does.
“I believe Georgia is unique in putting traffic offenses on probation,” said Carl Wicklund, executive director of the American Probation and Parole Association.
The upshot? At a time when the state is earning accolades for reforming its criminal justice system, Georgia has become one of the worst places in the nation to get into a little bit of trouble.
Questionable add-ons
In Georgia, misdemeanor probation is “offender funded.” Probation companies get their revenue from the supervision fees local courts allow them to collect. Those usually run about $35 or $40 a month. The state adds another $9 monthly fee for a crime victim fund. That means if someone spends 12 months on probation paying off a $500 traffic ticket, the overall cost of the offense can exceed $1,000.
The tab can go higher. The AJC found that some probation companies have convinced local courts to authorize a buffet of questionable charges that go way beyond the monthly supervision fee.
Some courts allow “orientation” and “set-up” fees of $25 or more. There are picture fees ranging from $2 to $15, while “insurance” fees associated with a week of community service work often add another $15 to the tab. Drug screening fees are part of the fee schedule too, with some judges allowing $15 charges and others authorizing $25.
“The practice of layering fees on top of fees gives the unfortunate impression that the court system is about collecting money rather than dispensing justice,” said Sarah Geraghty, a senior attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights who has filed a series of complaints against probation companies.
The County and Municipal Probation Advisory Council usually doesn’t question the fees, as long as they’re approved by the local court. But the regulators recently made a case involving one probation company’s creative approach to charges.
Satilla Probation Management was charging an unauthorized $10 “administrative fee” for scheduling a drug test, in addition to the $15 fee for the actual test. The company also improperly calculated fees owed by some probationers and found ways to charge an “orientation” fee more than once, according to a compliance report obtained by the AJC.
Eaton’s company, Alternative Probation Services, attracted regulators’ attention in 2013 with a $15 “medical coverage” fee added for probationers doing community service work. He later agreed to drop the fee.
Too poor to pay
The most contentious issue involving misdemeanor probation involves “pay only” cases — Georgians placed on probation only because they can’t immediately afford to pay a traffic ticket, not because they need supervision.
Nobody knows exactly how many “pay only” cases Georgia has. The Community Corrections Association of Georgia estimates it’s about 20 percent of cases. In some high-volume traffic courts, judges and probation companies say, at least 60 percent of probation cases are “pay only.”
To Pamela Hutcheson, a single mother on disability, pay-only seems like a “money scheme” targeting poor Georgians.
She was given probation when she couldn’t immediately pay a $920 fine for speeding and failing to maintain insurance.
The probation charges included an administrative fee ($50), picture fee ($15), 12 months of probation fees ($35 a month) and the state’s crime victim fee ($9 a month). She was even hit with a drug test fee on a case that had nothing to do with alcohol or drugs. That added another $25. The total cost? Over $1,500.
“I already thought the fine was a lot — over $900 for the two tickets and they were just traffic citations,” said Hutcheson, who lives in Darien. “It ended up being so much more.”
Threatened with arrest if she didn’t pay, she was able to hand over $640. She got no relief from a formal complaint, but a local judge agreed to dismiss her case in January after widespread problems at the probation company came to light.
Other states use low-cost payment plans through the courts — not probation — for people who can’t immediately afford a ticket.
In South Carolina, traffic offenders can get a payment plan at a cost of 3 percent. Those who fail to pay can have the money seized from tax refunds. In Texas, local courts also offer payment plans. It’s a flat fee of $25 to pay off a fine over time.
Reforms being considered
The probation bill being debated by the General Assembly seeks to address a wide range of concerns.
It gives judges something they desperately want: clear authority to put misdemeanor probation cases on hold if someone stops reporting and can’t be found. That way, offenders couldn’t run out the clock in hiding to escape payment.
Probation companies would have to disclose how much they make from fees, and fees for “pay-only” probation would be capped at three months.
Judges could substitute community service hours for probation fees and waive fines and fees if they would cause a significant financial hardship.
The bill also requires what the U.S. Supreme Court already ordered: Before jailing someone for failing to pay, the judge must find that the failure was willful, not the result of poverty.
The Georgia trade group for probation providers does not object to the bill.
“While the provisions of the bill will change the way our industry does business, we believe the bill will allow our industry to continue to serve our courts and local communities in a positive and meaningful way,” said John Prescott, president of the Community Corrections Association of Georgia.
A top executive at Sentinel Offender Services, which handles more Georgia cases than any other probation company, also said he is supportive of reforms. Sentinel’s Mark Contestabile said his company already does much of what is in the bill. He said he even has ideas local courts might want to consider down the road to make pay-only cases more affordable.
But the biggest issue on the table, he said, is having a clear system for deciding who is too poor to pay and needs an alternative such as community service or free probation.
“It makes no sense to take an individual and put them in a situation where they may fail,” Contestabile said. “We don’t want to do that, and I don’t believe the courts want to do that.”
Augusta attorney Jack Long said poor probationers must be protected from profit motives that lead to abuses. To pressure the poor to pay off their fines and fees, some people have even been jailed, he noted. His legal challenge to the state’s misdemeanor probation system led to the cancellation of thousands of arrest warrants across the state, and the release of some people from jail.
“In the American economic system, there is nothing wrong with making a profit,” Long said. “However, the judicial system is supposed to be a system of dispensing justice that is not concerned with profitability.”
‘Beyond anything that’s reasonable’
The bill the Legislature will consider also would move oversight of probation companies to a new state agency.
State regulators have shut down a few offices, but in the past year-and-a-half only Jenkins County Probation was fined: $800 for failing to fingerprint employees and complete training.
Critics of Georgia’s probation system say that in too many cases, serious shortcomings have been brushed off with no consequences for the probation provider. “Such a feeble response is unlikely to deter future misconduct,” Geraghty said.
In a 2013 compliance review, for example, regulators found that Eaton’s Alternative Probation Services wasn’t adequately overseeing employees, probation officers’ caseloads were enormous and administrative staff handled work only probation officers were authorized to do. His contract also didn’t contain a necessary provision for handling indigent offenders.
Then, last summer, the Dalton company failed to inform a local court that a probationer had paid off court-ordered fines and fees. The man was thrown in jail on a faulty warrant.
“It’s a very big deal for someone to be arrested who shouldn’t be,” Eaton said. “It’s every company’s nightmare.”
Eaton says he works to follow the rules and fix problems cited by regulators. He wasn’t sanctioned for his company's shortcomings. The improper warrant, he said, was an isolated incident.
Steven Mock doesn’t see it that way.
He was almost 18 and working a fast-food job when he was arrested. He ended up being busted twice for possession of alcohol by a minor and once for driving without a license. He had a curfew violation, too.
He spent months reporting to Alternative Probation Services and said he tried to keep up with payments. But he said it was clear from the beginning he couldn’t succeed, and no one was interested in offering an alternative other than paying.
The total for all his cases was $4,684, according to Mock’s probation receipt. He paid $1,750. “I couldn’t support my family and pay probation,” said Mock, now 22.
A Dalton lawyer, Jerry Moncus, who agreed to help Mock, said a judge should have offered him an alternative. He said it’s essential to require judges to determine whether probationers are too poor to pay. Over and over again, he said, he’s seen excessive fines and fees for minor violations crush low-income people.
“They treat those individuals like they are something really horrific and some real huge danger, but you’re talking about red lights and stop signs and turn signals and things that young people do on a regular basis that they’re paying thousands of dollars for,” Moncus said. “I understand you have to be punished for violations of statutes and things like that, but the punishment they receive today is far beyond anything that’s reasonable.”
About the Author
