Juvenile Injustice on Display in “Kids for Cash”
A preview of the documentary film "Kids for Cash" which looks at the private prison scandal in which two Pennsylvania judges sentenced children to incarceration in return for payoffs.
http://www.progressive.org/juvenile-injustice-on-display-in-kids-for-cash
After Charlie Balasavage’s parents bought him a red scooter it was discovered that it had previously been stolen. After his visit to Ciavarella’s court, the 14-year-old went on to spend five years in the correctional system.
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For making a fake MySpace page ridiculing her high school’s assistant principal, Hillary Transue was sentenced to three months in a juvenile detention center, her First Amendment rights be damned.
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But behind Conahan and Ciavarella’s law and order stance was more than just an overzealous preoccupation with rules, regulations and school safety. These judges had a corrupt motive: Pennsylvania Child Care and a sister company paid them $2.6 million. These payoffs were rationalized as being “finder’s fees.”
However, as the truth emerged and local investigative reporter Terrie Morgan-Besecker and talk show host Steve Corbett, along with the Juvenile Law Center, sounded the alarm, the public perception was that these “finder’s fees” were actually kickbacks and bribes to the judges for helping to close a public facility and replace it with a private for-profit lockup, which they proceeded to supply with cannon fodder in the form of children and teenagers. Both judges are serving time in federal prison for racketeering.
Before reading the article, I wasn't aware that the US, Somalia and South Sudan were the only UN-member countries not to sign the U.N.’s Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
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