Both Dougj and John wrote about this:
In 2007, a frantic call from an alarmed parent prompted Juvenile Law Center to investigate irregularities in the Luzerne County Pennsylvania juvenile court. Juvenile Law Center discovered that hundreds of children were appearing without attorneys before juvenile court judge Mark Ciavarella, and were then quickly adjudicated delinquent (found guilty) and sent to out-of-home placements for very minor offenses. In 2008, after further investigation, Juvenile Law Center petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to identify those children and vacate and expunge their records. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court initially denied that request.
A lot has happened since then:
The U.S. Attorney later filed federal criminal charges against Ciavarella and another Luzerne County judge for accepting nearly $2.9 million in alleged kickbacks from the developer and former owner of two private for-profit juvenile facilities in exchange for placing children in these facilities through the Luzerne County juvenile court process.
In 2009, after learning of the illegal kickback scandal, Juvenile Law Center returned to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and asked the Court to vacate and clear the records of all of the youth who appeared in tainted juvenile proceedings before Ciavarella. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court granted Juvenile Law Center’s request and issued an order to vacate and expunge the juvenile adjudications and records of all of the thousands of youth who appeared before Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008.
Juvenile Law Center, along with pro bono co-counsel Hangley Aronchick Segal and Pudlin, filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of children who were adjudicated or placed by Ciavarella, as well as on behalf of their parents. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages from the former judges, private facilities, and the developer under federal civil rights laws and the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
As a result of their involvement in the corrupt “kids-for-cash” conspiracy, Michael Conahan, Robert Powell (the owner of the facilities), and Robert Mericle (the developer) pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges; former judge Mark Ciavarella is scheduled to go to trial in February 2011.
Ciavarella did go to trial, and that’s where we are.
These judges are corrupt, but even the best case in the juvenile justice detention system is a disaster.
I have never, not once, seen a kid emerge from a locked detention facility any better than he or she went in. Not with a better understanding of what they did or why they did it and how they might avoid doing it again, not better off emotionally, physically or academically. Some hold their own and emerge exactly the same as when they went in, except they have now gained valuable experience in navigating a prison setting and many, many come out worse.
Detaining children in locked facilities for status offenses, property crimes or minor drug infractions makes no sense and is an absolutely shameful waste of money that could be put towards actually trying to help them make some kind of reasonable restitution or progress towards recovery from whatever it is that landed them in court in the first place. It also runs directly counter to our stated goal in juvenile justice: assessment, intervention and prevention, not ill-advised ever-shifting politically driven notions of vengeance or punishment.
A special master has been appointed to look at why the system failed in Pennsylvania, and here’s what he found:
He also called upon police departments and schools to consider alternative resolutions to cases, short of taking them to court. Too often, Grim said, school officials were too quick to refer cases to court that might have been handled with less intrusive measures.
“It was apparent that many school officials supported Ciavarella’s ‘get tough’ policy without really giving thought to what it meant,” Grim said. “They would immediately pick up the phone and call police because they knew if they reported it and it got in front of a ‘get tough’ judge . . . the troublemaker would be out of their hair.”
Richard S
I’m sorry but most judges are corrupt – at least to the extent that they accept law enforcement’s word under oath. My experience has been that cops will say whatever they think they need to say to get what they want – a conviction at all costs up to and including perjury.
That some went farther with a profit motive is just not a surprise.
EconWatcher
I’m generally against the death penalty, but I’m struggling to think of a punishment sufficient for a judge who would send kids to juvey in exchange for bribes.
I can’t find the link, but I saw a statistic recently that something like 12% of kids in long-term juvenile detention are raped.
Zifnab
Bwhahahahaha! Silly Kay, that would require time, effort, and money. We’re plowing every bent penny we have into the private for-profit prison system right now. We don’t have any money to spare on school councilors or kid-sensitive police programs.
It helps if you picture children not as tiny individuals, like yourself or your loved ones, but walking bags of cash just waiting to be scoped up and dumped into your bank account.
John Emerson
This isn’t the worst things that’s happened in this country recently, but somehow it’s one of the most alarming. Thousands of kids (I presume, mostly black, though who knows?) had their lives ruined or seriously blighted by a corrupt judge and an authoritarian school system. This is the kind of thing that, if it happened under Communism or Fascism or in some third-world country, would be used as proof that that country’s government was irredeemably evil.
JCT
Not to mention that with these “convictions” on their records these kids could have significant and long-lasting difficulties with college admissions and employment.
Special place in hell for these scumbags.
Kay
@Zifnab:
I’m going to defend on that :)
I’ve been doing mediations through a county court (not my usual stomping ground, but an urban court, sadly) and it’s great. Meet with child and guardians, come to agreement on terms, if anyone doesn’t meet terms, child doesn’t give up any rights, and goes the court route.
We’re learning. It’s just taking too long.
Kay
@EconWatcher:
There were a series of really shocking cases out of Chicago and New York where kids were brutally abused by facility employees.
Most disturbing, to me,was the fact that a lot of the employees were women, but maybe that speaks to the fact that I’m female. The DOJ had to threaten to step in in NY.
EconWatcher
Somewhat on topic, I was in a conversation once with a prosecutor whose duties included juvenile cases. She was bragging about her county’s “get tough” approach for all manner of cases. I asked if kids were safe when they get sent to juvenile detention. Like, for example, do the smaller kids get raped by older and meaner kids? She said she didn’t know much about it.
I still can’t decide which would be worse, if she were telling the truth, or if she were lying.
Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)
Slightly O/T:how many forced birth
terroristsactivists has anyone seen addressing the issue of actually raising the former fetuses? Or considering the hard issues like these? I can guarandamntee you that most of the kids that were shuffled off to the cops and the courts because they were “troublemakers” were poor. Because that’s what former fetuses whose birth is forced grow up to be. Poor, and troubled. But of no use to the forced birth folks once they have crossed that cervical rubicon, until perhaps, they can tote an M-16, providing they stay out of jail. And everyone in power wants to pass the difficult kids along to some other part of society to deal with.Erik Vanderhoff
A fitting post, given the court hearing I was in yesterday, where a special education student was charged with “disorderly conduct” for talking back to the school cop who was violating the kid’s Individual Education Plan (and therefore his federal education rights). The fucking ADA brought charges and was trying to get detention time. As soon as I pointed out that the school and the officer violated federal law, the ADA changed his tune toute-fucking-suite and made a motion to dismiss “in the interest of justice.”
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
matryoshka
I saw a story about this on 60 Minutes or some such. The kids interviewed there were all white, as far as I recall. One twist on the screw here was that some of the kids were sent to a camp in the tropics, in a very isolated place and with awful “caretakers,” and it was hard to the parents to find them, and then it was expensive and difficult to free them once they did.
Many of the national guard “boot camp” GED programs for dropouts have had to be discontinued because of the high rate of sexual predation (usually males making jailhouse bargains with female cadets) among the staff. No one ever got tough on the adult offenders, though.
Calouste
@Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q):
The Republicans have already solved that, have they? If states were allowed to enact their own laws regarding child labor instead of having the tyranical federal government set them, the problem wouldn’t exist and the kids would have something to keep them out of trouble before they are shipped off to Afghanistan to die.
LGRooney
@Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q): Exactly what I was thinking. Why are kids so often the abused by the fuckers?
@Erik Vanderhoff: Visions of myself with hand on the throat of the school cop. What kind of school is this that it needs a cop?
Leave kids the fuck alone!!
(Sorry, but child abuse gets my rage meter going.)
Paul in KY
@EconWatcher: I think a 30 year sentence would be a start.
kay
@matryoshka:
The boot camps were also a horrible idea. Just a disaster. They were trendy, and politicians loved them. One of those politicians was Bill Clinton.
There are fads in juvenile and children’s issues. That’s the only word for them. Fads.
The latest one is labeling everyone and their brother a sexual offender, and before that they were all “gang members”.
evinfuilt
I don’t understand why that judge and the people who ran those detention facilities aren’t charged with kidnapping. Maybe that’s just me, but it seems obviously like it, and only one step removed from child-trafficking.
Stephen Suh
Missouri, of all places, has instituted a very effective program for dealing with juvenile justice. Several states are implementing it, though that’s obviously not enough.
The main idea behind it is that the kids need assistance, treatment and rehabilitation, and their families need support as well. It’s not about just coming up with stronger punishments every year.
Suffern ACE
@matryoshka:
You mean the company was running its own Devil’s island? Not even in PA? This whole thing is outrageous.
Sly
School administrators who want problems to just go away? Nah, that never happens.
Mark S.
I hope this judge gets sent away for the rest of his miserable life. Taking bribes to send kids to prison is so low I can’t even think of a good analogy.
Whoever came up with private prisons should be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
ET
In my Hill DC neighborhood there is this constant drum beat about most of the crime being perpetrated by juveniles and why isn’t DC doing more. It always seems the me that for many, “doing more” comes down to locking them (i.e feral teens) up. They may mean “why isn’t the juvenile justice system better about adjudicating and monitoring” but it always feels like lock them up.
JGabriel
Small Crowd Awaits Ciavarella Verdict — Matt Hughes @ Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre):
Jesus.
How the hell is that even illegal? Maybe it’s grounds for some sort of civil suit, at worst. But juvenile detention?
I grew up in that county, and I’ll be the first to tell you that it’s chock full of backwards, close-minded, ignorant, semi-racist hick assholes. But none of them deserve this — especially their kids.
It’s always been one of the most corrupt counties in the state, which is saying A LOT. When the story first broke, and all I’d read of it was the headline, “Judge Allegedly Takes Cash To Jail Kids”, I knew it was Luzerne. THAT’s the kind of place it is. These are people who have earned their cynicism about government.
And now it’s a county filled with thousands of kids and young adults sent to juvie for baseless reasons, and they and their family and friends will have every reason to continue that cynicism, and the despair and hopelessness it breeds. Thousands of children, CHILDREN, traumatized by injust jailing — all so a few corrupt bastards could line their pockets with cash.
I hope the courts throw the book at them, and throw away the keys when they lock them up.
.
JGabriel
@John Emerson:
Probably not. Luzerne is lily white:
It’s the only plurality Polish county in the country.
.
Stefan
is the kind of thing that, if it happened under Communism or Fascism or in some third-world country, would be used as proof that that country’s government was irredeemably evil.
And it would be, if another country did it. But That’s Not Who We Are, and so when we do it, it’s not seen as evidence that hey, just maybe That Is Actually Who We Are, it’s just seen as the work of A Few Bad Apples.
Draylon Hogg
Didn’t I see this in a M*chael M**re film?
Stefan
Laurene Transue, of White Haven, has attended every day of the trial. Her daughter, Hillary Transue, was sentenced to juvenile detention by Ciavarella for posting a fake Myspace page that mocked a school official.
Wait, she was sent to jail for satire? What the hell was the charge???
jrosen
I have an ex-stepson who was arrested in Indiana with 10K in cash and some LSD. He was sentenced to a mandatory minimum 8 years and did some of it in the same prison which housed Mike Tyson. Unfortunately for him, he is not a former heavyweight champ but a small Jewish kid from Danville CA and Detroit. He got out after 3 1/2 years on a “hardship” plea because his mother and sister (and biological father, who is one of the great a$$holes of humanity) were in CA. While he refuses to talk about, he did allow that the things that you hear about happening in prison do happen in prison.
I can’t stand to be around him. He is clearly deeply damaged by his time inside, and he hides it so deeply that when trying to relate to him there is no “there” there. They killed his soul.
What greater good was achieved by this?
The US has become a moral stinkhole, and I’m not talking about killing fetuses. I am talking about birthed human beings who are flushed like toilet paper after being shit on by a “system” which rewards greed, lying, exploitation, and dehumanization.
As long as everything is measured by financial net worth, nothing will change. You might want to lock up this judge for life (where hopefully he will get the “treatment”) but there will always be others to take his place.
These are the times when I really wish there was an afterlife, complete with a very hot hell for such as these people.
celticdragonchick
@Erik Vanderhoff:
What is wrong is that we have become an authoritarian leaning society, and we are flirting with becoming an outright police state.
celticdragonchick
@Suffern ACE:
There is an infamous “Christian” reform school in the Dominican Republic. Great biography by a former female inmate (who is now an atheist journalist) called Jesusland:A memoir.
Another really bad boys reform school is run by a viciously homophobic Mormon state legislator. The place is called the Utah Boys Ranch. Many, many horrifying stories…
Google: “Mormon Gulag”.
EconWatcher
jrosen:
That’s a really awful story. I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of people we have destroyed just like your stepson.
Surely one of the weirdest and sickest aspects of American culture is that we actually, literally, laugh at this stuff. Jay Leno gets that naughty look on his face and makes a crack about gang rape in prison, and people laugh.
Obviously, prison rape happens in other countries. But Hitchens wrote in a Vanity Fair article that he’s aware of no other culture where this is a subject of humor. Why is it here?
Easy enough to see why prison officials can’t be bothered to stop it, if their taxpaying constituency literally thinks it’s funny for a slightly built 18 year old to get his teeth knocked out and ripped apart in a gang rape. What’s the matter with us?
Myranda
For what it’s worth — and it ain’t worth much — the “wilderness camp” in question was, indeed, located inside Pennsylvania. It’s a private run “detention center”…which replaced the county-run juvenile detention center that was closed down at the order of the judges involve here.
Hillary Transue was charged with “harassment.” She was not represented by a lawyer, nor was she permitted to represent herself at the “hearing.” She was adjudicated delinquent less than a minute into the proceedings, sentenced to three months in juvenile detention, and taken from the room in handcuffs.
http://www.masterjules.net/hillarytransue.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html
Maude
This is along the lines of zero tolerance.
Remember the search of the teen aged girl for drugs at school that was before the Supremes?
We could go back to Clinton’s 3 strikes you’re out promotion.
The use of the law must be upheld, punishment must be meted out always advocated by the truly corrupt haters.
Teens are vulnerable because in reality, they have few rights.
RSA
What a terrible story. The only semi-bright point I can find is this:
Of course, that’s just on the retribution side. (And Ciavarella, if found guilty, should end up spending at least one day behind bars to match every day that every kid he sentenced spent behind bars.) But there’s no good way to repair the lives he ruined.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q):
Once the kid is out of the protected womb, it’s on its own.
Let it fend for itself and lift itself up by its own bootstraps.
mclaren
You people really, seriously don’t get it.
This is the future.
America as a whole has decided to adopt the California approach to a collapsing economy: switch to a prison-industrial economy.
Once upon a time, CA was known as the “science state.” CA spent more money per capita than any other state in the union on universities and community colleges and everywhere you looked, they were breaking ground on new colleges. As a result, CA had the best education in America.
When the economy collapsed and all the jobs got offshored, CA decided to switch to a new business model — swap all those formerly high-paying programming and engineering and aerospace design jobs for high-paying prison guard jobs. (1 out of every 5 prison guards in CA makes more than $100,000 per year.) Then CA competes with Thailand and rural China and Malaysia factories that pay their workers 50 cents a day by contracting out the inmates in CA state prisons to work for 45 cents a day.
After 9/11, America decided to adopt the CA business model. Turn America into a vast gulag full of prisons, flood America with cops — TSA, DHS, a whole alphabet soup of muggers with badges — and flood America’s prisons with ordinary people convicted for non-violent crimes. In many cases, crazy stuff like not having the right paperwork when importing orchids.
The juvenile “justice” system is just America’s new business model trickling down the age bracket. Eventually, everyone in America will be some kind of mugger with a badge (TSA, DHS, DEA, whatever) or a prisoner or a prison guard or a parolee. And American industry will successfully compete with Vietnamese and Mexican factory workers who get paid 40 cents a day by putting our vast prison inmate workforce to work at a princely wage of 35 cents per day.
This is the future. Get used to it.