For Immediate Release 
September 12, 2023

Contact:
Connease Warren
713-304-8990
connease@alcenter.org

Report highlights injustices, detrimental economic impact for Black residents and communities 

Allegheny County, PA— Probation, long believed to be a helpful tool for reforming the broken criminal legal system, is instead a driving force of mass incarceration. Probation in Allegheny County, a report released today from The Abolitionist Law Center, exposes a system beset with problems that disproportionately impact Black residents and zip codes with lower median incomes. 

The inherent injustice in the cash bail system along race and class lines has become a familiar issue to the public and a target for activists and reform-minded organizations. But probation reforms are not as easily understood and widely overlooked as a crucial pillar of mass incarceration that entraps people in a cycle of involvement with the carceral system and prevents them from rebuilding their lives.

Also often overlooked is the devastating financial impact of probation and pretrial incarceration. The average individual on probation in Allegheny County is ordered to pay $6,545 in court costs, $1,644 in fines, and $14,592 in restitution. The vast majority of these costs, fines, and restitution are still unpaid, and nonpayment itself is often the basis for imposing new probation sentences.

“It’s no secret that probation in Pennsylvania is a broken system desperately in need of reform,” said Veronica Miller, senior policy counsel for criminal legal reform at the ACLU of Pennsylvania. “One important finding in this report is the frequency with which people on probation are ordered to pay restitution to giant corporations, a trend that particularly impacts communities of color and low income communities. Unfortunately, the probation ‘reform’ bill currently being considered in the state legislature would double down on keeping people on probation indefinitely if they can’t afford to pay restitution. That’s not justice; that’s debtor’s probation.”

Those serving probation sentences experience tremendous loss; loss of jobs, relationships, and housing, impeding the most basic needs to survive. The resulting instability, coupled with a deterioration of one’s mental and physical health while incarcerated, makes it even more likely that a person will violate their probation. This cycle creates a virtual hamster wheel of loss and harm that worsens with each turn. 

“Probation is a predatory and coercive system that destroys lives and drains resources from our most oppressed communities, with no demonstrated benefit to overall public safety,” said Dolly Prabhu, the report’s lead author and staff attorney with the Abolitionist Law Center.