Oh Great, Debtor’s Prison Is a Thing Again

As the drowsy Alabama summer wore on, Burdette’s debt of over $2,000 grew with the daily jail fee that Harpersville added to her bill. Her family managed to rustle up $2,500, but Burdette said they were told by Penny Hall, Harpersville’s clerk, that her debt was now about $5,000, and that they would have to pay all of it for Burdette to be released. “It was either pay all the money,” Burdette said, “or stay.”

So she remained.

Her fellow inmates pressed her for details of her crime. “‘How long have you been here?’ ‘Months.’ ‘What did you do?’ ‘A traffic ticket.’ And they’d just laugh: ‘Are you serious?’” As she recounted the story, Burdette’s voice rose. “There’s a lady in there killing folks, and they get a bond. They get to go to court.”

At the beginning of September, a voice came over the intercom: “Dana Burdette, pack up.” No explanation, no court hearing. Just freedom, suddenly. She had spent 113 days in jail.

Have you heard of privatized probation? Hannah Rappleye and Lisa Riordan Seville cover the disturbing and arguably unconstitutional practice for The Nation, and reading about these peoples’ lives ruined by things like a traffic ticket is insane.

Human Rights Watch has a great summary of the private probation industry, which helped me wrap my head around it. In short, the courts outsource probation to for-profit companies, and in turn these companies charge offenders for their own probation.

The Guardian outlines a few typical costs:

Monthly rates for basic supervision range from an average of $35 per month in Georgia to $100 per month in Montana, according to Human Rights Watch. Costs for additional services such as electronic monitoring or drug testing can be staggering: GPS monitoring can cost upwards of $180 to $360 per month; drug tests cost an average of $25 a pop.

Offenders stay on probation until they can pay their fines, tickets, fees, etc., so the ones who can least afford it end up staying on probation forever, racking up more debt as they go, and then, unable to pay, they end up in jail. And then they’re charged for their time in jail! Perfect. Good work, America.

Photo: Kate Ter Haar

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