Private companies helping to enforce the law, a disturbing trend in American cities.

Alabama- In Prichard, a South Carolina-based traffic enforcement company has offered to pay for police officers to issue tickets and split the fines with City Hall.

In Warrior, a subsidiary of a Virginia-based debt collection company audits businesses for delinquent taxes, and splits the business licenses fees it recovers with the city.

And in Harpersville, an Atlanta-based private probation company has been blasted by a state judge for being a part of a "judicially sanctioned extortion racket."

Among local governments, privatization and outsourcing are not new things. For decades, communities have turned to private companies to provide services such as garbage collection or to manage utilities such as water. But in recent years, cities and counties throughout Alabama have begun outsourcing of a different kind - one that delegates power and authority over citizens.

Private companies have pitched these arrangements with promises of reduced expenses and larger, newer revenue streams, and for many local governments, those promises couldn't have come at a more opportune time. Privatization can reap generous rewards, such as in Center Point, where a traffic enforcement camera contract with Arizona-based Redflex Inc. has become the city's second-largest source of revenue after sales taxes.

Nationally, municipal revenues have fallen each of the last six years, according a report issued last month by the National League of Cities.

"Cities have been making significant cuts to their budgets for several years now, and that trend will continue," writes Michael Pagano, the Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who coauthored the report. "These are serious times for cities and their residents.

Difficult, but manageable, financial hurdles for cities will remain for the foreseeable future."

In short, cities are hurting financially, and in council chambers and county courthouses, private contractors have offered to help. Private probation companies, tax collectors, private traffic enforcement - they are the first to arrive in a national wave of privatization that delegates government authority over people like you.

The city turned to Birmingham-based Revenue Discovery Systems. RDS is a subsidiary of Virginia-based PRA Government Services. Together, they have more than 250 client cities and counties in Alabama, and more than 750 nationally.

According to Gilroy, outsourcing services traditionally provided by the government lets new cities avoid legacy costs, such as underfunded pension plans and long-term debt that have hamstrung older communities.
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/10/justice_inc_should_private_com.html

Private probation company says it's just the court's 'hired help.'

The city had contracted with Judicial Correction Services, a Georgia-based private probation company.

One of several such companies in Alabama, JCS is by far the most successful. In eight years, it has secured probation management contracts in more than 100 of Alabama's roughly 250 municipal courts.

JCS is now the target of multiple state and federal lawsuits, and of media scrutiny. Rather than pitching his company to new clients, Chief Marketing Officer Kevin Egan now spends much of his time defending JCS.

That defense, he says, is a simple one.  JCS is the "hired help of the court." While the company deals with probationers, its contracts leave all the authority to make decisions with the judges.
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/10/private_probation_company_in_h.html

Governments must ensure rights are protected, experts say.

When it comes to privatization, public watchdogs, policy experts and partisan analysts agree on at least one point. Government can't just walk away when the ink dries on the contract.

"The government has the responsibility to make sure the system works fairly," says Jim Williams, executive director of the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama. "We expect the private sector to be aggressive. The responsibility to set limits and make rules lies with the government, not the private sector."

Many of the private companies that share authority over citizens with governments leave at least a modicum of power with the jurisdictions they serve. With Judicial Correction Services, the final say in probation cases rests with the judge. With Redflex and iTraffic, local officers must approve any tickets given to motorists.

With Revenue Discovery Systems, the cities and counties set the tax rates and collect most of the taxes RDS identifies in its audits.

According to ACLU Policy Analyst Jay Stanley, that oversight must include the kinds of checks and balances government has, including transparency and accountability laws that don't otherwise apply to private companies.

"Corporations are transparent about their finances if they are publicly traded, but beyond that, they don't have to comply with open records laws and open meetings laws," Stanley says. "When you bring in a private sector for-profit, it doesn't really fit into the scheme of checks and balances that has evolved over time."
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/10/governments_must_ensure_privat.html