I was thinking that as well. Where I live the judicial system has a bad habit of creating life time criminals out of juveniles who commit petty crimes.
I know of a young man who is caught in this cycle ... well... he was. He has an aunt and uncle who’ve intervened in his life and are helping him stay up with the institutional debts. If he’s late on one payment he’s in violation of parole, put back in jail, charged for his time in the jail by the privatized jail, additionally fined and ultimately released to repeat the cycle.
That said I’m not sure I have a problem with any of that... the solution to his problem was my brother and his wife. Not changing the system. They are helping him to learn to make better decisions. Those that don’t have that in their life or reject that are destined to repeat their problems.
I’m not sure the cycle is the right one... but neither is letting these kids escape paying their fines and completing their sentence.