[5][9] In July 2012, Judge Hub Harrington of Shelby County, Alabama halted the company’s aggressive pursuit of fines owed the Harpersville Municipal Court.
[5] He stated,[9] From a fair reading of the defendant’s testimony, one might ascertain that more apt description of the Harpersville Municipal Court is that of a judicially sanctioned extortion racket.Judge Harrington found that Harpersville Municipal Court's actions "repeatedly violated the constitutional rights of defendants"[5] who were trapped by JCS into paying several times the amount of their original no-leniency court-imposed fines and fees.
[5] In his findings Judge Harrington described how under the contract between Judicial Correction Services and Harpersville a defendant who is unable to immediately pay in full a fine of $200 on the day of trial is placed on probation.
[10][11] In a 23 June 2014 in-depth article in The New Yorker journalist Sarah Stillman investigated whether lucrative profits from injustice were being made by the private "alternatives to incarceration" industry.
[15] Part of the segment included details on the questionable operating methods of the firm and how their actions, in several cases, have only served to increase the debt of those who need to pay fines due to municipal violations.