To Prison For Poverty • SHORT DOCUMENTARY • BRAVE NEW FILMS
I will be teaching you this in full guide so do not miss! Make money using your mobile phones/pc/laptop and make money fast! Believe me, you can make money online without investment!
1) https://brave.com/thi100
Download Brave Browser to receive rewards (Should be installed and used for 30 days)
2) https://publishers.basicattentiontoken.org
Create account and link your Youtube/website to get your referral link.
3) https://uphold.com
You will need to create an account here as a result of the payments made to the Brave Rewards. KYC is a must!
4) Use GOOGLE AUTHENTICATOR to log-in
******
WAYS OF EARNINGS:
1.) Referral Program ~ You will be given $5 worth of BAT tokens for every user that downloads and use Brave Browser for 30 days using your personal link.
2.) Publishers/Creators ~ For those who have a website/Youtube channel who wants to monetize their platform, Brave Browser users can give you BAT tips.
3.) Advertisements ~ Watch ads to earn BAT tokens. Set it to 5 ads per hour.
REMINDER: ALWAYS VERIFY/CONNECT YOUR BRAVE BROWSER WITH YOUR UPHOLD ACCOUNT. To do that, click the BAT icon on the Brave Browser then click "Wallet Verify".
Payout is every 8th of the month. You can transfer them to your Coins PH (any BTC wallet can do) or bank account. No minimum withdrawal.
This is an everyday thing.
I probably don't have enough gas. And thestarter's gone out on it, so, you gotta do
this every time you want to leave in thatcar.
And we was just going to the gas station.They pulled us over and they wrote me a seat
belt ticket, and it came out to be $41. Ididn't have no money to pay, so they charged
me $10 to put me on JCS probation. And JCSit's... I don't get why they're in the picture
-this is between me and the courts, not anotherbusiness.
There is an entire industry devoted to makingmoney off of people who can't pay. Normally
an offender is put on probation to make surethat they're not posing a threat to public
safety. If they're not going to be put intoprison. But we see a lot of courts really
just hiring probation companies because theywant to hire a debt collector, and calling it probation.
Judicial correction services is a privatecompany that allegedly provides private probation
services -essentially, they're a collectionagency. Private probation companies don't
charge the courts they work for -instead,they bill the people they supervise directly
-in fees, every month that they are on probation.
That's how they make profits.
We found widespread abuses plaguing this wholeindustry. Ignoring evidence that people are
actually making heroic efforts to pay downtheir debts.
Is that all the money you've got? All of it.
Being poor has never been a crime in thiscountry.
And yet, we are still throwing people intoprison for owing money and not paying it back.
I've heard of people going to jail for notpaying their fines. That's one thing around
here that will get you in jail quick is notpaying your probation. They will come get
you for that quicker than not paying yourchild support.
Probation is supposed to be a way to keeppeople out of prison who don't really belong
there. Private probation really turns allof that on its head.
It's essentially a debtor's prison. Prettymuch all of Colombiana is in there. Just about
everybody I know has had to -and still aregoing through it.
Yeah, every time you go to court it's likea family reunion.
One of the really perverse things is thatoften the poorest communities are the best
markets for them. In a place where peoplereally struggle, people wind up on probation
in large numbers and for very long periodsof time.
And that translates into big money in feesfor probation companies.
So when profit becomes the driving force,civil rights get thrown under the bus.
That's just about as far as I can get it fromthe inside. I have to have help getting it
the rest of the way.
Colombiana is a very small town. There's justa lot of land and roads, and what stores we
do have -there's not really that many.
I've applied for Fred's, Piggly Wiggly, Target-I would love to have a job, so I won't be
broke all the time.
JCS adds on thirty five dollars every month.Even if you're making progress on it, or not.
That's almost impossible when you are 17 withno income. I live with my mom and my sisters
and my two nephews, and my mom is on disability.She pays all of the bills and if she can give
me anything, she will give me a little bitto put towards my ticket, but there's usually
not much left.
$40 is very hard to come by. And once youget $40 or something like that around here,
usually you put that in gas to get where youneed to be.
We're looking at offenders who would not beon probation at all if they had more money.
They actually wind up paying more than a personof means, over time. And faced with the continual
risk of incarceration if they fall behindon their payments.
Here is the actual ticket I got -I paid $10.Fees: $35, and fees -balance: $41. And it
shows that it went towards my fees, and myfine stayed the same.
This one right here shows I paid another $10.Shows that the fees went down, but the fine
is still $41. I've told the judge that I havethe money to pay for the ticket, and I couldn't
afford the rest of the fees. And he said thatwasn't his problem, that I could just put
that $41 towards the probation. And then,I got another one that shows I paid $41 even,
and the fine has not been touched, not onetime, all the money I've paid.
You see this paper right here, it says a paymentis needed. If you fail to appear, a warrant
will be issued for your arrest.
A lot of companies in the private probationindustry are run by people who are former
law enforcement. JCS is run by a man namedRobert McMichael, who is a former sheriff
and US marshall. And there's no question thatthose connections often pave the way to them
getting the business that they get.
The system is horribly broken. If you can'tpay, you're poor, then you're going to be
placed in the hands of JCS, threatened withjail, and in many times -jailed.
Hundreds of people locked up -A thousand every month in Alabama because
they cannot afford to pay -It was either pay, or go to jail.
They threatened me with jail -The New York Times quote, "There are real
constitutional issues at stake".
There are two federal lawsuits that are goingon against JCS -we're challenging that whole
system. The fact that these people were indigent,that they were forced to pay additional fines
and then were ultimately jailed because theycouldn't pay these fines that were demanded by JCS.
I have to go back to court and I have to figureout how to come up with half of it right then,
and I cannot leave the building until I do.Or, I will be locked up.
I'm not trying to get out of my ticket, Iwas guilty. I deserved the ticket. But all
this probation fees they tack on -I can'tafford it. And I'd just really like to be
able to pay it and be done with it.
Georgia passed a law transferring probationservices to the counties -and that allowed
them to privatize their probation servicesfor misdemeanor crimes.
Put behind bars for being poor. That's howa group of local attorneys described arrest
warrants requested by Sentinel Offender Servicesfor misdemeanor offenders.
We're all basically low income. We live paycheckto paycheck. My husband and I, we've been
married 32 years. We have two daughters, andthat's my younger daughter when she was probably
about five. In 2006 I was pulled over forDUI. I was sentenced to Colombia County, I
sat there for eight months. Sentinel put meon two years probation. 2008, my probation
was over. I paid my fine. In 2012, Labor DayWeekend, a police officer pulled in.
I was walking my dogs around the front ofthat trailer. The officer come in here and
he got out and he asked me to stop. And thenhe come back saying there's a hold on me in
Colombia county, and I said "For what?" andhe said "violation of probation."
I'd been off probation for four years. I said,no officer, I believe you're making a really
bad mistake. He says, well I still have totake her in. And that's when I sat in Colombia
county for 20 days.
Judge Danny Craig asked Sentinel, "Why isshe still on probation when she was off four
years ago?".
And they had took it upon themselves to reinstateme, without a judge's order or anything -back
on probation.
Just to get the monthly fee.
He sent me home. I was off. I was off of it.But my husband still had to pay $156 dollars.
That makes you scared. You wonder about goingin a grocery store, or just out walking your
dog. A police officer might come by and arrestyou again. I do realize I shouldn't have been
drinking and driving, and that I did makea mistake, and I did pay for it.
But they want to drag it out and drag it out,just for their profit. And there's so many
out there that they're using like that.
A disabled Augusta veteran locked up becausehe couldn't pay a fee, to get that turned
into jail time. And blamed Sentinel offenderservices. Three people currently jailed in
Richmond County are joining the legal fightagainst Sentinel. Ten thousand Richmond county
residents with outstanding arrest warrantstaken out by Sentinel.
When I walked out of the court room, afterthat twenty days, a lawyer was waiting outside
for me. And he said, "You know they were holdingyou illegally?"
And I'd like to really talk to you. So herewe are talking about a lady that stayed in
the Colombia county jail for about twentydays at fifty dollars a day. It cost the county
a thousand dollars, it cost the lady her freedom.So Sentinel could collect $157? I mean, that's
what we're dealing with.
Sentinel is a big company, but it's familyheld. The owner of the company is Bob Contestable.
His son Mark is largely responsible for runningthe company's for-profit probation business
out of Georgia. Many company officials arequite eager to blame the courts. The reality
is that they have an enormous amount of discretionin their day to day interactions with the
people they supervise. And many of the decisionsthey make are not done in consultation with
the courts at all. There's a lot of powerthat the courts delegate, sometimes improperly,
to these companies. But the companies havea very direct responsibility for all of this
as well.
Wave for the camera. She just got married,she just got back from the Carribean. So I
must pay them pretty well because they cando that. I'm Dale Allen, I'm the Chief Probation
Officer of Athens-Clarke County ProbationServices. Overall, I've been in the criminal
justice field for over 35 years.
One of the contributing factors is decidingto transition to Private Probation from Government
Probation was a request of the judges formore accountability, more transparency. We
believe we're 100% transparent. All my recordsare open, my fines, my fees, where my money
goes, my budget is open record.
I don't feel any pressure whatsoever to collecta certain amount of fees, we are not here
to make a profit. The concept of locking peopleup for money goes against every instinct that
I have as a manager of probation. I actuallycall it the Economics of Doing the Right Thing.
If they can not pay, they legitimately cannotpay, then it's to the community's best interest,
in our government's best interest, to workwith them any way you can short of incarcerating them.
I think that most people like to imagine thatin 21st century America, there is no such
thing as a debtor's prison any more. That'snot true. There are people in courts all across
this country losing their freedom not justbecause they are unable to come up with money
to pay for a fine, but because they're fallingbehind on a private, for-profit company that
has been allowed to collect fees from them.
JCS, Sentinel, their interest is to make money.Not serve the judicial system.
Without question, the most urgent need isfor laws at the state level that impose strict
oversight and accountability on these companies.
And the situations where they can and shouldn'tbe able to collect fines from people.
They don't show like they care about people.Even if you're trying.
Y'know, to do what's right.
They don't help nobody. There's really no purpose for them to get money.
We have to go by the laws. And I feel theyaught to, too.
Who do they have to answer to, for doing wrong?
Private probation companies charge excessive fees to low income people who can't pay small fines like traffic tickets. If they can't pay, they go to jail. SUBSCRIBE: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=bravenewfilms HOST A SCREENING: http://www.bravenewfilms.org/screenings Many people think that debtor’s prisons disappeared from American society just as surely as horse-based transportation. But in fact, people who are too poor to pay fines are still being threatened with incarceration -- and even imprisoned -- today. Add private, for-profit companies to the mix, and you've got a system that abuses those who can least afford it, with disastrous effects on poor people and communities of color . Our documentary, To Prison For Poverty, features two parts. Part 1 tells the story of Hali Wood, a seventeen-year-old from Columbiana, Alabama, deeply in debt to a private probation company, JCS. Part 2 tells the story of Kathleen Hucks, a woman suing Sentinel Corrections Services for their abuse of power. We've long known that mass incarceration disproportionately affects low-income communities and communities of color. In our video about the money bail system, we found that the wealthier a person is when arrested, the easier it will be to pay less in terms of money and freedom. A rich person who can afford to pay bail right away will get to go home, and will receive all of his or her money back upon returning to court. A poorer person accused of the same thing must pay fees to a bail bondsman in order to borrow enough money to make bail, and that fee will never be refunded. That means that a teacher might pay thousands in bail fees, when a movie star charged with the same offense would end up paying nothing. We see a similar dynamic with for-profit probation companies. If someone gets a traffic ticket and can't pay, the judge puts her on "probation," which really means being ordered to walk down the hall and sign up for a payment plan with a company that has a contract to collect unpaid fines and fees for the court. If the person falls behind on her payments and ever-mounting fees, including those charged by the for-profit probation company itself, company officers pressure her for payments, sometimes with threats of jail and arrest warrants from court. The end result is that poor people scramble to make payments they can't afford. And some even lose their liberty and go to jail. Like payday lenders, these for-profit companies often seek contracts in cities and counties that are strapped for cash. The companies then offer to collect debts owed to courts with no cost to the government by charging probationers—the very people put on probation simply because they were too poor to pay. Then the companies charge probationers exorbitant fees. Hali Wood was hit with a $41 seat belt ticket. Her payment plan charged a monthly fee of $35. Probation is supposed to help people return to their community when there is no public safety justification for keeping them behind bars. That goal is sabotaged by companies that are simply collections agencies on steroids. Judges who run these courts can end this abuse tomorrow, by exerting more oversight of these companies, or by simply ending contracts with these companies where they have the power to do so. As we explore in our documentary, traditional public probation does a fine job of enforcing the law without a profit motive. In the coming weeks, we'll be screening To Prison for Poverty in the very communities where these companies operate. It's time to let them know we're on to their racket. ABOUT BRAVE NEW FILMS Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films are at the forefront of the fight to create a just America. Using new media and internet video campaigns, Brave New Films has created a quick-strike capability that informs the public, challenges corporate media with the truth, and motivates people to take action on social issues nationwide. Brave New Films’ investigative films have scrutinized the impact of U.S. drone strikes; the war on whistleblowers; and Wal Mart’s corporate practices. The company’s films have received more than 56 million views online. Watch our feature films free & SUBSCRIBE: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=bravenewfilms NEW VIDEOS EVERY WEEK! Like us on Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/BraveNewFilms Set up a free screening in your community: http://bravenewfilms.org/screenings