Debtor’s prison for profit
by digby
Alabama is an amazing place. It’s quite beautiful and charming in dozens of different ways even as the echoes of its controversial history still reverberate in today’s cultural battles.
But come on, this is too much:
Harpersville and Childersburg are blaming a private probation company for getting them sued by indigent municipal court defendants who claim the two cities operated debtors’ prisons.
The two north Alabama cities say in a lawsuit filed this week that Judicial Correction Services Inc. raised fees without permission, used threats to collect money, and some of its employees wore badges and claimed to be “probation officers” when they were not.
The lawsuit also states that JCS and its insurance company should pay for defending them against the lawsuits by the city court defendants. The lawsuits against Harpersville in state court and against Childersburg in federal court are still pending.
[…]
Both Harpersville and Childersburg face lawsuits from city court defendants who say they were jailed after they could not keep up with payments on court fines and costs. One judge more than two years ago called Harpersville’s situation a “debtor’s prison” and took over that court.Harpersville claims in the lawsuit that four JCS employees were negligent because they allegedly represented to others that they were probation officers and some carried badges with a seal. That gave the appearance that they were probation officers who spoke for the cities.
“The individual defendants never told anyone with these municipalities that they were going to refer to themselves as ‘probation officers’ and did not get permission from anyone from these municipalities to carry badges,” the lawsuit states. “Had these municipalities known that the individual defendants were making representations that they were ‘probation officers’ and carrying badges, these municipalities would have ordered the individual defendants to immediately stop.”
The two cities claim that as a result of the JCS employees’ negligence Harpersville lost its ability to operate a municipal court and both Childersburg and Harpersville face liability to the court defendants who have sued.
And here I thought privatizing public services was much more financially prudent and efficient.
So, the private debtor’s prison employees failed to tell the cities that contracted with them that they were fraudulently performing their jobs so the city isn’t responsible.
Every part of that sentence is ridiculous.
But hey, at least we know we’re free, amirite?
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