Private probation is the contracting of probation, including rehabilitative services and supervision, to private agencies. These include non-profit organizations and for-profit programs. The Salvation Army's misdemeanor probation services initiated in 1975, condoned by the state of Florida, is considered to be among the first private probation services.[1] The private probation industry grew in 1992,[2] when "local and county courts began outsourcing misdemeanor probation cases to private companies to alleviate pressure on overburdened state probation officers."[3][1]
Opponents such as the ACLU argue that private probation companies are profiting from poverty and devastating communities to a much greater extent than publicly run probation.[4] In The New York Times, Thomas B. Edsall notes that "The more commercialized fee collection and probation services get, the more the costs of these services are inflicted on the poor."[5]