Prison Industrial Complex? Pennsylvania Judge Convicted in Alleged 'Kids for Cash' Sc

Are you telling me that there's a chance that a powerful person will actually go to prison for a crime he committed?

That would be beautiful, and all the more beautiful because it happens so rarely.

But yeah - any time that profit becomes an integral part of a service it's guaranteed to become the only part of that service that powerful people actually give a damn about.

 

RR, have you seen Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story?

That documentary has a great piece about this scum bag.

And yes, in addition to the MI complex, Washington and major state legislatures like California's have also embraced the PI complex.

 

He's getting off way too easy with just the corruption charges.

They need to make him pay specifically for the maltreatment of the kids in lining his pockets.

Civil suits if need be...

 

Hopefully, there will be some additional justice:

"The Juvenile Law Center said it plans to file a class-action lawsuit this week representing what they say are victims of corruption. Juvenile Law Center attorneys cite a few examples of harsh penalties Judge Ciavarella meted out for relatively petty offenses:

Ciavarvella sent 15-year-old Hillary Transue to a wilderness camp for mocking an assistant principal on a MySpace page.He whisked 13-year-old Shane Bly, who was accused of trespassing in a vacant building, from his parents and confined him in a boot camp for two weekends.He sentenced Kurt Kruger, 17, to detention and five months of boot camp for helping a friend steal DVDs from Wal-Mart."

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-23/...dges-number-of-juvenile-offenders?_s=PM:CRIME

 

Just remember, taxes are the price you pay to live in a civilized society.

Pennsylvania Railroad

In the Keystone State's juvenile justice scandal, money changed everything.

Jacob Sullum | February 23, 2011

Mark Ciavarella, the Pennsylvania judge known as "Mr. Zero Tolerance," had a reputation for running his courtroom like an assembly line, spending just a minute or two on each of the juvenile offenders who appeared before him. If they were not represented by lawyers, which was usually the case, they would more often than not be shipped off in shackles to some form of detention, even for trivial crimes.

Aside from defendants and their parents, few people seemed concerned about Ciavarella's mindlessly tough attitude—until it turned out he was receiving kickbacks from the private detention centers where he sent juvenile offenders. But for those suspicious payments, Ciavarella, who was convicted last week of racketeering and related charges, might still be practicing his special brand of injustice, which he and his supporters said helped kids by hurting them.

Federal prosecutors say Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, at the time Luzerne County's president judge, conspired to replace the county's dilapidated juvenile detention center with new ones built and operated by their cronies. Conahan, who pleaded guilty to racketeering last year, arranged for the centers to get the county's business, while Ciavarella kept them full. In exchange, they received $2.9 million.

Years before this arrangement came to light in January 2009, it should have been clear something was amiss in Ciavarella's courtroom. In 2004 the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reported that the share of juvenile offenders given out-of-home "placements"—21 percent under Ciavarella, up from 4.5 percent under his predecessor—was higher in Luzerne County than anywhere else in the state.

The article noted the "skyrocketing costs" associated with Ciavarella's harshness and suggested that local schools had become too dependent on his court to handle discipline problems. But it also cited a dramatic reduction in juvenile recidivism. "It looks like it works," a defense attorney told the paper, while Ciavarella insisted, "I'm in the business of trying to help these kids." He was elected to a second 10-year term the following year.

Meanwhile, stories of juvenile offenders mistreated by Ciavarella were trickling out. A 10-year-old girl who accidentally set her bedroom on fire spent a month in a detention center. A 13-year-old boy got 48 days for throwing a steak at his mother's boyfriend during an argument. Ciavarella locked up another 13-year-old boy for failing to testify against a fellow student who brought a knife to a school dance. A 15-year-old was sentenced to a boot camp for "an indefinite period" after she wrote a prank note that was deemed a "terroristic threat." A 16-year-old spent a month in a boot camp for creating a MySpace page that made fun of her high school's assistant principal. A 17-year-old boy charged with possessing drug paraphernalia, his first offense, served a total of five months.

Despite such reports, the state Judicial Conduct Board declined to act on a 2006 complaint that outlined Conahan and Ciavarella's conflicts of interest. As late as January 2009, two weeks before the "cash for kids" story broke, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected a petition in which the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, joined by the state Department of Public Welfare, asked it to nullify hundreds of Ciavarella's decisions. The April 2008 petition noted that juvenile offenders in Ciavarella's courtroom were routinely pressured to waive their right to counsel and plead guilty without being informed of the consequences.

After the charges against Ciavarella and Conahan were announced, the state Supreme Court suddenly discovered a "travesty of juvenile justice." Saying it "cannot have any confidence that Ciavarella decided any Luzerne County juvenile case fairly and impartially," it overturned thousands of convictions.

Superior Court Judge John Cleland, who headed the state panel that investigated Luzerne County's juvenile justice scandal, was dismayed by the "inaction" of "those who knew but failed to speak." Judging from the pre-scandal praise for Ciavarella's effectiveness, part of the blame for this silence lies with a "scared straight" mentality that sacrifices law for the illusion of order.

 

Profit motive mixed with public service results in failure?

Color me shocked.

 

Yes it is one of many many examples of the prison industrial complex, a burgeoning exciting form of libertarian free market captialism.

One other notable example is in Arizona in which they have private for profit folks running the immigration prison. It turns out they were money contributors to the movement to enact the law to lock stopp and question all folks who looked "illegal". Perfectly logical as a way to generate more private profits for the operators.

In some states such prison businesses have lobbied aggressively for three strikes and you're out. The immigration prison in Houston out by IAH was and is probably still owned by the Corrections Corporation of America whose stock trades on the stock exchanges.

 

You do realize that your article cited a perfect example of how the PRIVATE, for-profit prison system created an egregious miscarriage of justice. Those judges got the publicly funded juvenile facility closed down and took bribes to send kids to a for-profit juvenile facility.

In other words, you are helping to bolster my point. Thanks!

 

Yeah, who would have thought private for-profit enterprise might unfairly influence government?

 

No no no, andy.

This is how you respond to rtsy.




You do realize that your article cited a perfect example of how the PRIVATE, for-profit prison system created an egregious miscarriage of justice.

"Those judges got the publicly funded juvenile facility closed down and took bribes to send kids to a for-profit juvenile facility."

*insert copypasta link to reason.tv or youtube video*

 

Hey now, it's not just domestic anymore - we now outsource murder to corporations too. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Straight up corruption. While some of you may think he is getting off lightly I'm guessing his treatment in prison will be anything butt. (Pun intended)

 

Yeah, unionized public prison employees would never have a profit incentive...

 

What about the "cronies" mentioned in the articles? You know, those doing the funding. They need to be locked up, too.

 

Oh those cute little supply and demand diagrams of econ 101 never talked about corporations deciding that using their resources to buy politicians make the government pass laws that make them more money was one of their highest ROI.

It was just all assumed away like: lot of suppliers and buyers, perfect info to all parties, no barriers to entry etc.

I'm sure Sam can list a few other otherworldly examples of the assumptions behind the "science" of the One Market Under God crowd. I especially liked it when bigtexx IIRC correctly or was it RTSY said it was immoral to pay someone more than what he said was market value.

 

AYFKM?!?!?!