A group of nearly 20 federal lawmakers sent letters to two companies this week calling out abusive industry practices and requesting additional information about their profits, policies, and contracts with local governments.
In letters sent Tuesday to Sentinel Offender Services, a for-profit probation contractor, and Attenti Group, an electronic monitoring services provider, more than a dozen congressional Democrats excoriated the companies for allegedly abusive industry practices that heap debt onto vulnerable people who are already living in poverty.
The lawmakers have given the companies an Aug. 8 deadline to provide information on their profits, policies, practices, and contracts with local governments.
Nearly 20 lawmakers signed the letters, including Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Bernie Sanders, as well as Representatives Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ayanna Pressley.
“Robust oversight” of these industries is “long overdue,” said Rep. Tony Cárdenas of California, one of the letter’s signers, in a statement to The Appeal.
In recent decades, jurisdictions across the U.S. have increasingly outsourced probation and other state-mandated supervision services to private companies, giving for-profit agencies largely unchecked power to impose fees and restrictive conditions on individuals who are disproportionately poor and struggling to find stability.
These companies “drive people into crushing cycles of debt to pad the profits of corporations,” said Sen. Warren of Massachusetts, another signer, in a statement to The Appeal. “These fees are just another way that money is squeezed from some of the poorest people in society.”
I’ve heard numerous nightmare stories about Sentinel, mostly them adding terms that the court did not and the court siding with them if the matter got that far.
It would be nice if something came of this. But I’d bet the only thing that will is a few dollars flowing to the signatories under the table and the issue quietly disappearing.
This is what happens when you privatize gov’t functions that should never have been initially privatized. We’ve seen it across the US government as they shed government functions but are still paying for government functions when they’re completed by private industry. This is not a new thing. Those who have military experience in the uniform and then out will realize this as contractors.
I have always been a firm believer there should be no private for profit parties involved in the criminal justice system as they have an financial incentive for crime to happen and continue with no focus on prevention and rehabilitation.
they wont say the same about for profit prison as they engage in that practice.