Giles County has privatized its probation system to generate profit for two for-profit companies and to fund its court system off the backs of the poorest people in the County. The County contracted with PSI Probation, LLC and Community Probation Services, LLC to run a “user funded” probation system in which the companies’ sole source of revenue is from the fees and surcharges paid to them by the impoverished people they supervise. The lawsuit describes how the County and the companies extort impoverished people to generate profit by threatening to jail them if they do not pay. The poorest people in Giles County face a cycle of probation violation, extension of supervised probation, extra fees, and repeated jailing.
Civil Rights Corps joined Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd., the Nashville-based Law Office of Kyle Mothershead and Barrett Johnston Martin & Garrett to file a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of five named plaintiffs to end this unconstitutional extortion enterprise.