Life Inside America’s For Profit Justice System (Full Documentary)

Video Description

Imprisoning people for being poor has technically been illegal in this country for two hundred years, but it is still a reality. Municipalities with small, low-income populations and correspondingly low tax bases regularly pay their salaries, and pad their budgets by issuing “quality of life” and traffic fines to people for minor offenses, and sending them to jail if they can’t pay. Then, in more archaic modern-day debtor's prison practices, we explore the phenomenon of private probation companies. To avoid paying for probation services, thousands of courts currently outsource probation to for-profit companies which charge people exorbitant fees for their own probation. Failure to pay is treated as a violation of probation, punishable by jail time, which extorts cash from already-struggling people. Plus, Vice looks at the for-profit bail bond system. The US is the only first world country that commercializes bail. The for-profit industry rakes in more than $2 billion annually in revenue. Most criminal defendants can't pay the full bail amount and must either stay in jail or pay a 10 percent fee to secure a bond, which they won't recoup even if found not guilty. Originally published in 2016, and collected here for the first time. Connect with VICE: Videos, daily editorial and more: http://vice.com Follow VICE on Facebook: http://fb.com/vice Follow VICE on X: https://x.com/VICE Follow VICE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vice/ Follow VICE on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@vice Subscribe to the VICE YouTube Network: VICE: https://www.youtube.com/VICE MUNCHIES: https://www.youtube.com/MUNCHIES VICE News: https://www.youtube.com/VICENews VICE TV: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWF0PiUvUi3Jma2oFgaiX2w/featured Noisey: https://www.youtube.com/Noisey Motherboard: https://www.youtube.com/MotherboardTV Sports: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8C8WuWSsFjWFaTHcUQeQxA Waypoint: https://www.youtube.com/WaypointVICE About VICE: The Definitive Guide To Enlightening Information. From every corner of the planet, our immersive, caustic, ground-breaking and often bizarre stories have changed the way people think about culture, crime, art, parties, fashion, protest, the internet and other subjects that don't even have names yet. Browse the growing library and discover corners of the world you never knew existed. Welcome to VICE. #bailbonds #justice #crime #justicesystem #vice