Court: Georgia's private probation companies can keep supervising people on misdemeanor probation

The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld a controversial state law allowing private companies to supervise men and women placed on misdemeanor probations in city and county courts.

Georgia lawmakers passed a law in 2000 that made counties responsible for overseeing tens of thousands of people on misdemeanor probation. Some counties decided to outsource the duty to private companies. In some cases, those private companies have made large profits off of fees that low-income residents can't always afford.

In late 2012, 13 people filed a class-action lawsuit against Sentinel Offender Services LLC., the largest private probation company in Georgia, over fees it collected in Columbia and Richmond counties. The claimed that the company unconstitutionally collected fees beyond the length of probation sentences and imposed an additional fee for electronic monitoring.

In its unanimous ruling issued today, the court said that Sentinel had broken some parts of the current law and that county courts need better oversight over how some private probation companies operate. But Sentinel's actions alone did not provide enough grounds to toss out Georgia's private probation law, the court said.

“While the supervision of probation is a function historically performed by state probation officers, the mere act of privatizing these services does not violate due process,” the court's opinion said.

Though its ruling upheld the private probation law, which will continue to let courts work with for-profit probation companies, the justices struck down a provision letting courts extend the length of the original sentence.

They also declared that judges could order electronic monitoring on men and women sentenced to misdemeanor probation provided that the "conditions of probation it imposes be reasonable,” the court's opinion said.

However, the justices ruled that Sentinel's contract in Columbia Country was invalid, a decision that could lead to a trial court ordering them to return collected fees.

Sarah Geraghty, senior attorney with the Southern Center for Human Rights, which isn't involved in the lawsuit but lobbies for private probation reforms, tells CL the court's ruling sends a "strong message" to state lawmakers for possible reforms.

"The misdemeanor probation system in Georgia is in a state of crisis," Geraghty says. "It's broken. Public confidence in our county and municipal misdemeanor probation system is at a low. The state legislature needs to take action to restore some integrity back into the misdemeanor probation system."