While a judge must sign the arrest warrants in those cases, it is often a company employee who prepares the warrant and presents it to the judge for signature. Some judges do not make the time even to verify why the warrants are being requested, or that they have been sworn under oath. As one Mississippi judge whose court contracts with a private probation company put it, “You get a lot of paperwork and you see it and they give their reasons there and you just sign it. You don’t have time to scrutinize everything.” …

In Greenwood, Mississippi, Municipal Judge Carlos Palmer told Human Rights Watch that he had “maybe two or three” active arrest warrants out for [probation company Judicial Correction Services] probationers. But data later obtained by Human Rights Watch showed that as of August 2013 there were 295 active warrants for JCS probationers issued by his court—25 percent of JCS’ total caseload there at the time. Judge Palmer’s caseload contains a heavy preponderance of traffic offenses.