JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A nonprofit group and a debtors’ union have bought and erased private probation debt for about 20,500 people in Mississippi and Florida, sending letters that told them the news and sharply criticized “abusive debt collectors.”
The nonprofit Rolling Jubilee Fund said Friday that it worked with the Debt Collective to buy nearly $3.3 million of private probation debt on the secondary debt market for $97,922. The groups forgave all of the debt. The Debt Collective is a union of debtors working to abolish many kinds of debt and reform financial systems.
“Across the country, courts have outsourced probation to private companies who charge fees for their ‘services.’ With very little oversight, these companies often act like abusive debt collectors while those unable to pay run the risk of imprisonment,” said the letter dated Oct. 6.
The average individual debt erased was $159, said Braxton Brewington, press secretary for the Debt Collective. Most of the forgiven debt was for people in Mississippi.
Part of the condition of the debt purchase was that neither the Debt Collective nor The Rolling Jubilee Fund could reveal the name of the private probation company that sold the debt, the Clarion Ledger reported.