TBA Law Blog

TBA Law Blog

Giles County Settles Suit Challenging Private Probation Companies

Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Jun 2, 2021
News Type: Legal News

Giles County officials have agreed to end the use of private probation companies as part of a $2 million settlement of a 2017 lawsuit that claimed the county’s probation tactics amounted to an “illegal extortion scheme.” The class action suit, brought by the Civil Rights Corps, alleged that two companies operating in the county “transformed the … misdemeanor probation system into a machine for generating their own profit on the backs of Giles County’s most impoverished residents.” The system worked like this: when county residents were arrested for misdemeanors and could not afford to pay probation fees, they faced re-arrest for probation violations, often meaning they had to post even more bail to secure release. Probationers were routinely threatened with jail time if they could not pay. People sold their possessions, went without medications, skipped rent and became homeless, Tennessee Lookout reports. The settlement still must be approved by the federal judge overseeing the case, but once approved will waive all debt incurred by residents for misdemeanor probation and require the county immediately halt enforcing any outstanding warrants for misdemeanor probation violations. It also prohibits the county from keeping people on supervised probation solely due to their inability to pay. While the suit ends the use of private probation companies in Giles County, 25 companies continue to supervise misdemeanor probationers in 19 other Tennessee counties, the Lookout reports.

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