I saw it on Last Night Tonight with John Oliver about private probation companies (can't link to it because of language)
But here's an article about it:
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/artic...ded_fees_j
Some key parts of the article:
Quote:
For stealing the single can of beer, a different kind of monkey attached to Barrett's back—privatized probation, the increasing and increasingly controversial outsourcing of such services for those convicted of misdemeanor offenses. The companies have argued that they provide professionally trained supervision and follow the courts' direction.
The judge put Barrett on 12 months' probation during which Sentinel Offender Services, based in Irvine, California, would supervise him and collect the fine in installments. But after nearly a year, he was still on the hook for payments, owing Sentinel over $1,000 in fees, more than five times greater than the fine itself.
Of course as John Oliver talked about in his show, it also extends to things like Speeding Tickets (which for someone making minimum wage, could cost as much as one week of their wages). And in order to get on a payment plan, in some places you have to pay a fee just to get on that plan.
In some places that results in losing your Driver's License (which in turn can lead to you losing your job, which in turn leads to you still not being able to pay your fine)
From another Article about the same man:
Quote:
That Augusta court, like more than 1,000 other courts throughout the United States, uses an offender-funded model of privatized probation. This privatized model provides little government oversight over probation and can burden low-level offenders — many of whom don't have a lot of money in the first place, according to Human Rights Watch.
<p style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:15px;">The supervision fees paid to private companies range from $35 to $100 a month and can be even higher if offenders have to pay court fines on top of them. Barrett's total payment to Sentinel was $360 a month, according to Human Rights Watch.
http://www.businessinsider.com/human-rig...z3VJnkgMKZ
Now, fines should be paid. It's easy to say "If you don't want to pay the fine, don't do the crime," But everyone makes mistakes. I know I've gotten a speeding ticket before, and I'm sure many of you have as well. And yes, when people make mistakes they should have to pay the fine. What they shouldn't have to do however is rack up outrageous fees, be put on private probation where fees can rack up to five times more than the original fine and other fees can apply, or have to pay to get into a payment plan that allows them to pay the fine they owe. I don't think this is an area where the government OR private companies should be trying to make a profit. Sadly, however, they do.
This is what happens when you attempt privatize all the things.
I have that episode on queue for tonight. Sounds like a good one.
I don't have a problem with any of it. Why shouldn't it be something to profit off of? You don't think government profits from fines?
All fines are income drivers, all that I see happening is responsibility shifting to private companies who offer services for a return. No one is forced to accept the payment plan program, and the additional fee's are associated with prolonged repayment plans. The alternative is to have government offices acting as collection agencies for late or unpaid fines.
I mean if we didn't make a profit on all the things I hear about "shouldn't be for profit" we'd be left with very few ways to make a profit. Shouldn't make a profit on;
education
healthcare
utilites
public service
so what can we make a profit on?
Quote:I don't have a problem with any of it. Why shouldn't it be something to profit off of? You don't think government profits from fines?
All fines are income drivers, all that I see happening is responsibility shifting to private companies who offer services for a return. No one is forced to accept the payment plan program, and the additional fee's are associated with prolonged repayment plans. The alternative is to have government offices acting as collection agencies for late or unpaid fines.
So you're fine with someone owing a private company $1000 for a $200 fine?
I bet you wouldn't be fine with it if we decided to make these fines based on income. For example, if we decided that people who make $20,000 a year pay a $100 fine, while someone who makes $100,000 a year has to pay a $500 fine for the same crime. And for someone who makes $250,000 they'd be paying a $1250 fine. $500,000/year? $2500 fine.
Yet it's okay to force someone who can't pay a $200 fine, to owe $1000, and someone who can pay the $200 fine to just pay $200.
Quote:I don't have a problem with any of it. Why shouldn't it be something to profit off of? You don't think government profits from fines?
All fines are income drivers, all that I see happening is responsibility shifting to private companies who offer services for a return. No one is forced to accept the payment plan program, and the additional fee's are associated with prolonged repayment plans. The alternative is to have government offices acting as collection agencies for late or unpaid fines.
If a system is set up to fine people for various infractions then collection of late or unpaid fees will be a necessary evil. Like many other examples, privatization is not always the best option.
Oliver did a story last year on private prisons and the number of problems with that system as well.
Quote:So you're fine with someone owing a private company $1000 for a $200 fine?
I bet you wouldn't be fine with it if we decided to make these fines based on income. For example, if we decided that people who make $20,000 a year pay a $100 fine, while someone who makes $100,000 a year has to pay a $500 fine for the same crime. And for someone who makes $250,000 they'd be paying a $1250 fine. $500,000/year? $2500 fine.
Yet it's okay to force someone who can't pay a $200 fine, to owe $1000, and someone who can pay the $200 fine to just pay $200.
There's 3 situations that play out here:
Driver 1 get's a citation he pays the fine transaction is over
Driver 2 get's a citation he can't pay the fine it's to much, his license is suspended until he can pay the fine and the additional fee's that the DMV will add on. If he's caught driving he can be arrested and have even more fines.
Driver 3 get's a citation he can't pay the fine its to much, big evil private company offers to pay the fine upfront and the driver will keep his license and pay the money back to the company plus fee's for the service.
Tell me how the private company is the source of evil in that situation?
Quote:If a system is set up to fine people for various infractions then collection of late or unpaid fees will be a necessary evil. Like many other examples, privatization is not always the best option.
Oliver did a story last year on private prisons and the number of problems with that system as well.
The problem with private prisons is corruption, you have judges, lawyers and politicians getting kick backs to keep the prisons full, it's a completely different situation.
Quote:So you're fine with someone owing a private company $1000 for a $200 fine?
I bet you wouldn't be fine with it if we decided to make these fines based on income. For example, if we decided that people who make $20,000 a year pay a $100 fine, while someone who makes $100,000 a year has to pay a $500 fine for the same crime. And for someone who makes $250,000 they'd be paying a $1250 fine. $500,000/year? $2500 fine.
Yet it's okay to force someone who can't pay a $200 fine, to owe $1000, and someone who can pay the $200 fine to just pay $200.
Free market son!!!!!! You get what you are worth and pay an inverse proportion to that
Quote:I mean if we didn't make a profit on all the things I hear about "shouldn't be for profit" we'd be left with very few ways to make a profit. Shouldn't make a profit on;
education
healthcare
utilites
public service
so what can we make a profit on?
Food, entertainment, vehicles... You want more? Even for you this is a stretch. Come on man there are some thing that are essential to a society. You don't have to make a profit on literally everything.
Quote:There's 3 situations that play out here:
Driver 1 get's a citation he pays the fine transaction is over
Driver 2 get's a citation he can't pay the fine it's to much, his license is suspended until he can pay the fine and the additional fee's that the DMV will add on. If he's caught driving he can be arrested and have even more fines.
Driver 3 get's a citation he can't pay the fine its to much, big evil private company offers to pay the fine upfront and the driver will keep his license and pay the money back to the company plus fee's for the service.
Tell me how the private company is the source of evil in that situation?
Someone didn't read the article.
Driver 1 gets a citation. He pays the fine. Transaction is over.
Driver 2 gets a citation. He can't pay the fine, so the court hands it over to a private probation company, who then charges a fee for an electronic tracking device, and starts charging a monthly fee. All money goes toward paying down that fee, until that fee is gone. The fee keeps going up, the man can't pay, and eventually loses his license.
Driver 3 gets a citation. Can't pay the fine, so the exact same thing happens to him as it did Driver 2.
Heck here's another story:
Quote:
Cleveland’s troubles began in 2008, when a police roadblock went up in her neighborhood. She soon received several tickets for driving without insurance and without a license. “I knew it was wrong,” she told me, but she had to take her son to school and to travel to work. When she was unable to pay her fines, a judge sentenced her to two years of probation with Judicial Correction Services, a for-profit company; she would owe J.C.S. the sum of two hundred dollars a month, with forty of it going toward a “supervision” fee. Cleveland considered the arrangement a reprieve.
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<p style="font-family:'adobe-caslon-pro', Times, Georgia, serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);">The first year, Cleveland regularly reported to the J.C.S. office with cash in her purse, whatever she could put together, handing it to a woman in a crisp collared shirt, who she assumed was working for the state. But she quickly fell behind on payments, in part because her weekly cash deliveries sometimes went solely to covering the company’s supervision fee. She had lost her full-time day-care job the previous winter, after the local Hyundai plant cut workers’ hours, and employees stopped dropping their kids off each morning. Cleveland was broke. Instead of hiring someone to fix the holes in her bedroom walls, caused by shifting prairie soil beneath the house’s foundation, she stuffed towels in the cracks to keep out the cold. In early 2012, she turned over nearly all her income-tax rebate—some two thousand dollars—to J.C.S. But by that summer her total court costs and fines had soared from hundreds of dollars incurred by the initial tickets to $4,713, including more than a thousand dollars in private-probation fees.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/0...f-jail-inc
Quote:Someone didn't read the article.
Driver 1 gets a citation. He pays the fine. Transaction is over.
Driver 2 gets a citation. He can't pay the fine, so the court hands it over to a private probation company, who then charges a fee for an electronic tracking device, and starts charging a monthly fee. All money goes toward paying down that fee, until that fee is gone. The fee keeps going up, the man can't pay, and eventually loses his license.
Driver 3 gets a citation. Can't pay the fine, so the exact same thing happens to him as it did Driver 2.
Heck here's another story:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/0...f-jail-inc
No I get it some counties shift you over to a private company and some counties simply tell you pay the fine or turn over your license. Is there a better way for the companies to do this sure, but I don't have a problem with using private companies to manage and collect unpaid citations.
I'll read the article when I get home but I'm pretty familiar with the topic. I know several people that have to pay private companies for their DUI management, I know the private companies manage most of the red light cameras.
Quote:Food, entertainment, vehicles... You want more? Even for you this is a stretch. Come on man there are some thing that are essential to a society. You don't have to make a profit on literally everything.
Vehicles are transportation, people can't have jobs without transportation. Isn't that the point of this argument? We're letting people profit off the poor who can't afford to pay citations why is it ok to let people profit off transportation at all? I mean if they don't change their oil they can't get to work, so why should I profit off an oil change?
Quote:Vehicles are transportation, people can't have jobs without transportation. Isn't that the point of this argument? We're letting people profit off the poor who can't afford to pay citations why is it ok to let people profit off transportation at all? I mean if they don't change their oil they can't get to work, so why should I profit off an oil change?
You are using a slippery slope fallacy.
We are discussing the idea that fines imposed by society for breaking laws are being used to make money for private industry. And not just some money, a lot. In what world does that make sense? You spoke to corruption in the private rain prisons. Why is there corruption? Because something that should be handled by the public sector has been pushed to a for profit organization which, GASP, only wants to make as much money as possible. It breeds corruption and who get's hurt the most? Those without means.
It's not a private offense but a public/societal one. This should be handled publicly not privately. Want to know why some people seem to hate the free market ideal and privatization of public services so much? Because of nonsense like this.
Quote:You are using a slippery slope fallacy.
We are discussing the idea that fines imposed by society for breaking laws are being used to make money for private industry. And not just some money, a lot. In what world does that make sense? You spoke to corruption in the private rain prisons. Why is there corruption? Because something that should be handled by the public sector has been pushed to a for profit organization which, GASP, only wants to make as much money as possible. It breeds corruption and who get's hurt the most? Those without means.
It's not a private offense but a public/societal one. This should be handled publicly not privately. Want to know why some people seem to hate the free market ideal and privatization of public services so much? Because of nonsense like this.
It's not really a slippery slope, transpiration is voluntary, why would one area of transportation be ok to profit and the other not?
However back on point, I acknowledge companies only want to make a profit, I don't view that as a bad thing. The issue here isn't corruption, it would be different if you had police departments writing tickets to fill quotas to keep the private companies managing the tickets happy and sending kickbacks. That does however happen even when there is no private company, police departments have unspoken rules about quotas to fill to keep revenue running to the state or county office.
My point is the idea that someone would start a company to play the middle man isn't unreasonable, the people have an option they can pay the citation or enter the program managed by a private company. Like I said it's better than the alternative of don't pay the citation, there is no company to manage the program so your license is suspended. Any system private or public don't pay citations it gets expensive and snowballs, I'm failing to see the problem.
Quote:Vehicles are transportation, people can't have jobs without transportation. Isn't that the point of this argument? We're letting people profit off the poor who can't afford to pay citations why is it ok to let people profit off transportation at all? I mean if they don't change their oil they can't get to work, so why should I profit off an oil change?
You're missing the point, and I can't tell if it's on purpose or not.
Why is it okay to charge someone who can pay for the traffic ticket $200.00
But then charge someone who can't pay it $4000?
I'm sure you're a big fan of these loan companies too. The ones that have illegally high interest rates (allowed in part because regulating them is so difficult because they always find loopholes) The ones where you'd be better off robbing a bank, than dealing with them. To be honest, I'm surprised someone hasn't shot up one of those places yet.
It'd be more similar to if you charged say $40.00 for an oil change.
Person A comes in, pays $40, and you change his oil.
Person B comes in, says "I can't pay that, guess I'll have to go without an oil change" and then you say "Well, sorry. We changed your oil already." and put them on a payment plan where they end up paying $200 for that oil change. And if they don't pay, then you have them put in jail. Which is technically against the law, but the law does it anyway.
Quote:My point is the idea that someone would start a company to play the middle man isn't unreasonable, the people have an option they can pay the citation or enter the program managed by a private company. Like I said it's better than the alternative of don't pay the citation, there is no company to manage the program so your license is suspended. Any system private or public don't pay citations it gets expensive and snowballs, I'm failing to see the problem.
The problem is: WHEN YOU DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE OPTION.
You can't just say "Well, I can't pay it. So go ahead, suspend my license"
And they often end up suspending your license anyway, because again:
If you owe the company $100.00 and you owe the court $40.00, and pay the company $40.00 to pay the court, you still owe the court $40.00. And then the next month your bill increases by the company.
But hey, this is fine to you. Companies should only care about making profit. I mean geez, you're telling me they can't profit off of selling your personal information? That seems so wrong!
And before you say "Well that's illegal!"
How about the constitution being violated?
Quote:
He wound up divorced, homeless and broke, and in April 2012 he was arrested for stealing a $2 can of beer from an Augusta convenience store. Though not sentenced to time behind bars, his inability to pay a $200 fine would lead to him cycling in and out of jail, initially for almost two months, despite the fact that U.S. and state constitutional protections prohibit such punishment.
Quote:It's not really a slippery slope, transpiration is voluntary, why would one area of transportation be ok to profit and the other not?
However back on point, I acknowledge companies only want to make a profit, I don't view that as a bad thing. The issue here isn't corruption, it would be different if you had police departments writing tickets to fill quotas to keep the private companies managing the tickets happy and sending kickbacks. That does however happen even when there is no private company, police departments have unspoken rules about quotas to fill to keep revenue running to the state or county office.
My point is the idea that someone would start a company to play the middle man isn't unreasonable, the people have an option they can pay the citation or enter the program managed by a private company. Like I said it's better than the alternative of don't pay the citation, there is no company to manage the program so your license is suspended. Any system private or public don't pay citations it gets expensive and snowballs, I'm failing to see the problem.
I cannot tell if you are being intentional obtuse or not. It is 100% a slippery slope fallacy.
Maintaining or purchasing a personal mode of transportation as nothing to do with breaking laws put forth by society and then seeing a private company turn a profit off the fines you cannot pay.
Quote:You're missing the point, and I can't tell if it's on purpose or not.
Why is it okay to charge someone who can pay for the traffic ticket $200.00
But then charge someone who can't pay it $4000?
I'm sure you're a big fan of these loan companies too. The ones that have illegally high interest rates (allowed in part because regulating them is so difficult because they always find loopholes) The ones where you'd be better off robbing a bank, than dealing with them. To be honest, I'm surprised someone hasn't shot up one of those places yet.
It'd be more similar to if you charged say $40.00 for an oil change.
Person A comes in, pays $40, and you change his oil.
Person B comes in, says "I can't pay that, guess I'll have to go without an oil change" and then you say "Well, sorry. We changed your oil already." and put them on a payment plan where they end up paying $200 for that oil change. And if they don't pay, then you have them put in jail. Which is technically against the law, but the law does it anyway.
Quote:The problem is: WHEN YOU DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE OPTION.
You can't just say "Well, I can't pay it. So go ahead, suspend my license"
And they often end up suspending your license anyway, because again:
If you owe the company $100.00 and you owe the court $40.00, and pay the company $40.00 to pay the court, you still owe the court $40.00
If this doesn't seem unethical to you, then it shouldn't be unethical to charge people based on how much money they make in the other direction.
Weather or not people can afford to pay the initial citation isn't the point, when you get a citation you have to either pay the fine or pay the fine + additional fee's and penalties and if it goes to long surrender your license. That's how the citation works regardless of a private or public company being involved.
Quote:I cannot tell if you are being intentional obtuse or not. It is 100% a slippery slope fallacy.
Maintaining or purchasing a personal mode of transportation as nothing to do with breaking laws put forth by society and then seeing a private company turn a profit off the fines you cannot pay.
I'm not at all trying to be obtuse. I'm trying to point out one making a profit isn't different from the other making a profit, profit is neither evil nor good.