Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Bay Times article on probation services:
Hillsborough eyes controversial for-profit company to handle probation services
Monday, June 15, 2015 7:37pm
TAMPA — Hillsborough County is poised to give a $7.2 million contract to run its probation operations to Sentinel Offender Services, a company at the center of controversy in other states for similar work.
Commissioners will vote Wednesday on a three-year agreement that will pay Sentinel $2.4 million per year to manage misdemeanor probation in the county, which includes drug testing, providing intervention programs and monitoring about 3,000 defendants.
If approved, Sentinel will take over for the Salvation Army, the nonprofit that operated those services in the county for 40 years. But last year, the Salvation Army decided to exit the criminal justice business in Hillsborough amid questions about its mission and controversy about its finances.
The Salvation Army is best known for its charitable works, thrift stores and bell-ringing Christmas volunteers who collect donations every holiday season. But a 2011 Tampa Bay Times investigation found that the nonprofit also owned a $12 million headquarters in Lutz and had a largely tax-exempt $75 million real estate portfolio.
It was also paying former Hillsborough County Commissioner Jim Norman $95,000 annually for unspecified work until he retired from the organization in 2010.
Sentinel, though, is not without controversy of its own. It has, at times, been the focus of a national debate over whether for-profit companies should be allowed to run probation services for local governments.
The for-profit route is an enticing option because the company doesn’t charge anything to localities up front. Instead, Sentinel collects startup and monthly fees from offenders to provide the ongoing monitoring and the services needed to fulfill their sentence.
According to the company’s bid proposal, there’s a one-time enrollment fee of $15 and basic probation costs of $45 a month after that. Other compliance services, such as domestic violence intervention programs, cost an additional $49 per month. If an offender needs to be monitored on house arrest, it costs $6 per day and up to $11 a day for GPS tracking.
Sentinel’s model has drawn criticism from groups such as Human Rights Watch, who say the company penalizes low-income offenders with costly additional fees, extended probation periods and potential jail time if they can’t afford to pay their fees, which can quickly stack up.
Last year in Georgia, which has become ground zero in the for-profit probation battle, the state Supreme Court ruled against Sentinel in a closely watched court case.
The court said the Sentinel practice known as “tolling” — indefinitely extending probation to collect more fees whenever the company’s probation officer alleged misconduct — was illegal.
Sentinel, which is based in California, said it could not comment on its potential deal with Hillsborough until it was finalized.
An evaluation committee recommended Sentinel for the bid over five other companies, narrowly edging out Bay Area Youth Services Inc., a Tampa nonprofit that operates juvenile intervention programs.
Some within the county, including Clerk of the Circuit Court Pat Frank, hoped the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office and county courts could handle misdemeanor probation internally. Pinellas County chose that path when it broke away from the Salvation Army in 2011.
“I’m very concerned about the direction we’re heading,” Frank said. “It leads to poverty cycles, then they lose their job, and their car and their insurance.
“It’s frustrating to me because it seems we aren’t looking at the big picture.”
However, the Sheriff’s Office was not interested in taking on those duties, County Commissioner Sandy Murman said. Sentinel already provides electronic monitoring services for the Sheriff’s Office.
“I believe that the procurement was done by the books,” Murman said. “Naturally, there is a lot of discussion about (for-profit companies providing government services), but we did the procurement based on the fact the sheriff didn’t want to do the services.”
