Kids for Cash
In what was dubbed the “Kids for Cash” scandal that rocked the state of Pennsylvania in 2008, two judges in Wilkes-Barre were found guilty of accepting judicial kickbacks – upwards of 2.6 million dollars – for sentencing children to a particular developer of private juvenile detention centers from a developer of juvenile detention facilities. In this case, the judges pocketed millions in exchange for sending thousands of children to the facility, located in Luzerne County, Pa. An estimated 6,000 children, where an estimated 1,000 – 2,000 received excess sentences, were impacted by the judges’ crimes.
As for the kids, their offenses were typically minor (i.e swearing, stealing a CD from Walmart). The violations made famous here helped expose the operations of a private prison system that only continues to grow in influence, as its advocates for its for-profit model as a way for states manage their growing prison population. This model, it should be pointed out, is not seen anywhere else in the world. But even this might be changing.
According to the maker of the film documentary, the problem in Wilkes-Barre started with the Columbine shootings. The 1999 massacre in a Colorado high school was instrumental in stoking irrational fears that led school administrators to hand off misbehaving kids to the county. Consequently, where once a fistfight might have put a juvenile in detention or resulted in a suspension, now children were getting arrested. And because of judges’ strict zero-tolerance policies, they often ended up in shackles.
The companies involved, PA Childcare LLC, Western PA Childcare LLC, and Mid-Atlantic Youth Services Corp., which own and operate the centers in Pittston Twp. and Butler County, all received a stipend from the government for each inmate housed. This created a situation where the detention centers looked for ways to bring more inmates into increase revenue. According to the Juvenile Law Center, a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia, the judges sentenced teenagers to the facilities for simple misdemeanor offenses.
A key development worth noting is that most of those sentenced by judges Ciavarella and Conahan were denied the Constitutional right to an attorney because their probation service told them their misdemeanor crimes did not warrant one. It was only as a result of the judges pushing for particular facilities to house the inmates that caused people to suspect a partnership. It was a stunning abuse of power, and both men were eventually tried and sentenced to long prison terms for treating the children as commodities.
The Victims
Justin Bodnar was sent to juvenile detention when he was 12 years old for using obscene language during an incident with another student’s mother. It put his sent his life in a downward spiral. It was in juvenile where he tried marijuana and heroin for the first time. Now in his early 20s, Bodnar is trying to get his life back on track. His story is just one of several told in the documentary.
Hillary Transue, who created a fake MySpace page to lampoon a teacher.
Ed Kenzakoski, a high school wrestler, was detained for having drug paraphernalia in his truck. Kenzakoski never recovered from the experience. He became a different person and got into trouble again, this time as an adult. He took his life in 2010.
People often find it easy to say things like “juveniles who make mistakes should be taught a tough lesson.” The stories of most of those featured in Kids for Cash may be unusual in that they were prosecuted for minor or questionable offenses, but most young people sentenced to some form of detention are status offenders, meaning that they have committed offenses that would not be crimes if they were adults.
The Judges and Conspirators
In the documentary film, former judge Michael Conahan was shown admitting to his crime and accepting a plea agreement, though he was left to await sentencing; on September 23, 2011, he was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison and ordered to pay 874,000 dollars in restitution.
Unlike Conahan, former judge Mark Ciavarella did not accept a plea agreement and completely denied allegations of his involvement in the kids-for-cash scam. He and his family went as far as accusing Conahan of lying about the scam. They claimed Ciavarella was being falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. As a result, he was sentenced to 28 years in prison, 10.5 more years than Conahan. Had he admitted to his crimes, Ciavarella may have had a lesser sentence similar to that of Conahan.
Ciavarella was found guilty of twelve of thirty-nine federal felonies including racketeering, mail fraud, money laundering, fraud conspiracy and filing false tax returns.
Disgraced Hazelton attorney Robert J. Powell, who arranged to pay the judges $770, 000, lost his yacht, jet, and Mountain Top mansion in the aftermath of the Kids for Cash scandal; he was sentenced to 18 months in jail, which he completed in 2013. A racketeering lawsuit was filed against Powell last year by Gregory Zappala, his former business partner in two private juvenile detention centers at the center of the scandal; in exchange for dismissal from that suit, Powell agreed to pay $4.75 million and possibly up to $2.5 million more based on his net worth calculated by the end of 2016.
Robert Mericle of Mericle Construction, a builder of for-profit youth detention centers, built the centers with Zappala’s PA Child Care, LLC, and other entities involved in the ownership and operation of the centers located in Pittston Township and western Pennsylvania. He was sentenced to a year in federal prison. Additionally, Mericle received a $250,000 fine and 100 hours of community service. He was also sentenced for lying about his involvement in the “kids for cash scandal,” in which he paid a total of $2.1 million for judges to send juveniles to his detention centers.
In 2009, Mericle also pleaded guilty to failure to disclose a felony, after he initially refused to admit he had paid [the] $2.1 million. He faced up to an additional three years in prison, but this sentence was reduced as part of his plea agreement. It is worth pointing out that Mericle did not actually break any laws by paying the judges. The judges, however, committed a crime by accepting the money.
Watch a preview of the documentary here:
The Final Payout
A series of class action lawsuits were filed in the case that had victims are seeking millions of dollars in compensation. A total of 1,187 juveniles and 605 parents filed claims to receive settlement money. The actual payouts began in December of 2015.
Robert Powell was ordered to pay 4.5 million dollars in restitution. He was the co-owner of two private juvenile justice facilities and served an 18-month prison term after admitting that he paid bribes to former Court of Common Pleas Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. and his boss, Judge Michael Conahan. The victims and their families won additional millions in judgments from Mericle and Powell’s companies. Additional class-action claims were filed against Ciavarella and Conahan.
Settlements of more than $20 million were reached with defendant Robert K. Mericle and Mericle Construction.
The two former judges, even if they are sued for compensation, are serving federal prison sentences; thus, it remains questionable and even doubtful that they would be able to make payments to victims.
What Can We Learn From This?
There are a lot of lessons to be learned here. Chief among them is that the long-term effects of detention, in this case, illustrated that kids don’t “learn their lesson” so much as detention caused them to sink into a deep depression, which caused even more difficult as they were forced to contend with confinement-induced post-traumatic stress.
Recidivism was a problem too. Once the kids finished their sentences, the tiniest infractions would land them back in juvenile detention, where they might learn a thing or two from each other about doing drugs, how to steal more effectively, or even build a bomb, all while they cultivated a deep hatred for authority.
Not everyone benefits from positive social influences and family support. Recognizing that anyone of us could have been one of the children who became victims in the “kids for cash” scandal, we should heed the warning and approach juvenile justice in a very different way. Punishing kids is not like punishing adults. And if you do it wrong, you might end up with a career criminal and, even worse, a dead kid.
The purpose of the juvenile justice system, as established by Pennsylvania law, is reform and treatment – not punishment. Furthermore, there is a large body of evidence-based research that demonstrates the effectiveness of programs that are designed to keep young offenders from becoming repeat offenders. The same holds true for programs that allow youth to seek expungement of their records after their sentence is served.
The aim here is to help juveniles continue to pursue education and employment opportunities – opportunities they may otherwise be denied with a record hanging over their heads.
Prisons for Profit – the Prison Industrial Complex
Thus far, the Pennsylvania case is the only prosecuted case of judicial corruption and partnership with a private prison firm in the US. The influence of for-profit correctional centers, however, extends far beyond those who uphold the law to those who write the laws as well. In Arizona, the idea of a private prison to house illegal immigrants wooed lawmakers and corporations alike. Then-state senator, Russell Pearce (R), crafted the bill not with other lawmakers, but with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a membership organization of legislators and corporations.
In the state of Arizona, the concept of using private prison to house illegal immigrants has risen to new heights. Lawmakers, including the state governor, have been showered with thousands of dollars to influence their support for the process. Former state senator, Russell Pearce (R), crafted a bill to address immigrant detention not with other lawmakers and experts, but with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a membership organization of legislators and corporations. One of ALEC’s most prominent members is CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), the main organization that benefitted from the compensation paid to Ciavarella and Conahan for assigning juveniles to its facilities.
In the United States today, private companies operate 264 correctional facilities that house nearly 100,000 adult convicts. In a time when approximately 13 million Americans find themselves in a jail during any given year, six million of those end up in “correctional supervision,” more than in Joseph Stalin’s gulags. With that adding up to one in every 100 Americans being incarcerated, public prisons are running over capacity.
At the end of 2009, 19 states were operating at 100 percent or more of their highest capacity measure and the federal prison system was operating at 140 percent of capacity. Worthy of note is how all of this occurred during a period of time in which violent crime rates have fallen in the US, even as the nation’s incarceration rate has tripled since 1980.
The nations new jailers are now private prison corporations (private probation is on the rise too). Companies like CCA and the recently renamed GEO Group (now Abraxis) use their ever-increasing purchasing power to sway government legislators as part of a process of capitalizing on the prisoner overflow/overcrowding issues in public prisons. These two groups are the largest private prison operators in the United States, generating revenues of over $70 billion dollars.
Immigrant Detention – The New Cash Cow
The following article is written by Madison Pauly an originally appeared in Mother Jones Magazine
Immigration agents sparked panic across the country when a series of high-profile operations made it clear that a new era of crackdowns on undocumented immigrants had begun. Coming on the heels of a couple of major executive orders on immigration, the arrests and deportations were a very public reminder of President Donald Trump’s promise to deport upwards of 2 million immigrants upon taking office.
But given that America’s detention system for immigrants has been running at full capacity for some time now, where is the president going to put all of these people before deporting them?
In new jails, for starters. In the same executive order that called for the construction of a southern border wall, Trump instructed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to build out its sprawling network of immigration detention centers. Starting “immediately,” his order said, ICE should construct new facilities, lease space for immigrants alongside inmates in existing local jails, and sign new contracts—likely with private prison companies. The scale of that expansion became clearer on February 5, when the Los Angeles Times reported on a memo handed down in late January from White House immigration experts to top Homeland Security officials. The document called for raising the number of immigrants ICE incarcerates daily, nationwide, to 80,000 people.
Last year, ICE detained more than 352,000 people. The number of detainees held each day, typically between 31,000 and 34,000, reached a historic high of about 41,000 people in the fall, as Customs and Border Protection apprehended more people on the southwest border while seeing a simultaneous rise in asylum seekers. But doubling the daily capacity to 80,000 “would require ICE to sprint to add more capacity than the agency has ever added in its entire history,” says Carl Takei, staff attorney for the ACLU’s National Prison Project. It would also take an extra $2 billion in government funding per year, detention experts interviewed by Mother Jones estimated. And, Takei warned, “we don’t know if 80,000 is where he’ll stop.”
Yet even if ICE does not adopt an 80,000-person detention quota, other changes laid out in Trump’s executive orders suggest that vastly more people will be detained in the coming months and years. For example, Trump ordered ICE to prioritize deporting not only immigrants who been convicted or charged with crimes, but also those who had “committed acts that constitute a chargeable offense”—a category that could include entering the country illegally and driving without a license. Trump also ordered Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, who oversees ICE, to take “all appropriate actions” to detain undocumented immigrants while their cases are pending.
Beyond that, ICE could stop granting parole to asylum seekers, explains Margo Schlanger, a former Obama administration official who served as Homeland Security’s top authority on civil rights. With ICE taking enforcement action against more categories of immigration offenders and releasing fewer of them, Schlanger says, “we could get to a very large sum of people in detention very quickly.”
It’s not difficult to guess who profits. In an earnings call last week, the private prison giant CoreCivic (formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA) announced that it saw the ICE detention expansion as a business opportunity. “When coupled with the above average rate of crossings along the southwest border, these executive orders appear likely to significantly increase the need for safe, humane, and appropriate detention bed capacity that we have available,” CoreCivic President and CEO Damon Hininger said.
As of November, a whopping 65 percent of ICE detainees were held in facilities run by private prison companies, which typically earn a fee per detainee per night and whose business model depends upon minimizing costs to return profits to their shareholders. Since Trump’s election, private prison stocks have soared, and two new, for-profit detention centers are opening in Georgia and Texas.
Making $$$$ Out of Misery
Another private prison company, Management & Training Corp., is reportedly seeking a contract with ICE to reopen the Willacy County Correctional Institution, a troubled detention camp that held up to 2,000 ICE detainees in Kevlar tents between 2006 and 2011. “Historically, ICE has relied heavily on the private prison industry every time the detention system has expanded,” Takei says. “There’s little doubt in my mind that they will continue to rely on the private prison industry in what’s going to be the biggest expansion of the agency in history.”
The first new detention center contracts will likely take the form of arrangements between ICE and local governments to reopen empty prison facilities as detention centers or rent beds in existing local jails, Takei says. The arrangements, known intergovernmental service agreements, allow ICE to cut deals with local governments and private prison companies while avoiding a lengthy public bidding process. Occasionally, the local government agrees to hold ICE detainees alongside inmates in their publicly run jail—an arrangement a Department of Homeland Security subcommittee recently called “the most problematic” option for holding detainees. But most of the time, local governments simply act as middlemen in deals between ICE and private prison companies.
The opaque nature of the process allows all parties to avoid public outcry before the deals are signed, explains Silky Shah, co-director of the Detention Watch Network, an immigrant rights advocacy group. So far, immigration advocates haven’t gotten wind of many new contracts being negotiated or signed since Trump’s inauguration. “But that doesn’t mean contracting activity is not taking place,” Takei says. “I suspect there are closed-door meetings taking place across the country right now.”
Expanding detention quickly could have a high human cost. Schlanger is worried that conditions inside detention facilities could deteriorate without proper oversight from the Department of Homeland Security. “There are a lot of bad things that happen if the number of beds is ramped up fast, without appropriate controls, monitoring, supervision, and care,” she says, pointing to the potential overuse of solitary confinement, inadequate safety measures, poor nutrition, and insufficient medical care. “That means detainees could die.” Asylum seekers, she warns, will have a harder time fighting their immigration cases from inside detention centers, where it’s difficult to access lawyers and gather evidence. More could be coerced into voluntary deportation: “You’re vulnerable to the government saying to you, ‘Look, we’ll let you out from detention, but you have to give up your immigration case.'”
We don’t have to look far in the past to see the danger of rushing to open new detention facilities. Last year, as several thousand Haitian immigrants arrived on the southern border, fleeing natural disasters and poverty, the Department of Homeland Security began seeking contracts for new detention facilities to accommodate the surge. In their scramble to secure space for the new arrivals, ICE officials reportedly considered ignoring quality standards for the facilities—”scraping the bottom looking for beds,” as one official told the Wall Street Journal.
The bottom of the barrel, in this case, included a prison in Cibola County, New Mexico, owned by CoreCivic. Last summer, after an investigation by The Nation revealed a pattern of severe, longtime medical neglect in the 1,100-bed facility—which had gone months without a doctor—the US Bureau of Prisons decided to pull its inmates out and cancel its contract with CoreCivic. Yet less than a month after the last federal prisoner was transferred out, ICE was already negotiating an agreement with the county and CoreCivic to detain immigrants in the newly vacant facility. Four hundred immigrants are currently detained there. Takei notes that ICE contracted with the same company, for the same prison: “There weren’t any substantive changes.”
Shah expects to see familiar problems like poor medical care worsen as new deals for detention facilities are finalized. “One of the concerns we hear most often is that when people complain about ailments, [officers] will come back and just say, ‘Well, drink more water, or take an Advil and you’ll be fine,'” she says. “It’s a really harsh system already. If you’re going to expand at this level, it’s just going to become that much harsher.”
Private Prison Industry Licking it’s Chops Over Trump’s Deportation Plans,” by Madison Pauly
Discussion Questions
Were you familiar with the concept of “prisons for profit?” What do you think about the potential conflict of interest that may be inherent in running prisons for profit?
Would you ever consider working for a for-profit prison or probation agency?
During the Obama Presidency, legislation was implemented to curtail the growth of for-profit prisons; the Trump administration reversed this decision and is actively pursuing a policy of fostering the growth of the private prison industry. What does the research say about outcomes (i.e. time served, recidivism) when prisons are managed by private corporations?
What does the research say about outcomes (i.e. time served, recidivism) when prisons are managed by private corporations?
Some people like to think of prison as a form of government-subsidized public housing. What do you think?
What do you think about the moral argument of locking people up for profit?
What products do you own/use that are produced by prisoners? Take a quick personal inventory and discuss!
The idea of locking people up for profit is new to me, but I do believe it is morally wrong to lock people up for profit. Picking little wrongs people do and bringing this to the extreme by making them go to prison for money is definitely unacceptable. This doing can, and most likely will, completely change these young people’s lives and all because of the idea of money. Receiving longer periods of sentencing than normal, changing family dynamics, as well as giving these kids a criminal record and ruining their background for the idea of making money is not a normal thought process for anyone who does not have excess greed inside of them. These private jails that do this also treat these kids like any other prison if not worse because of the amount of power they hold just by being a ‘private’ facility. It is interesting what greed can make people do, especially when it comes to the future of kids.
I have never heard of the concept of “prisons for profit” but it is beginning to make sense now realizing. This goes to explain why our country has the highest incarceration rate in the world and why it continues to grow. Personally, I do not agree with the argument that people, especially juveniles, should be locked up for profit, and I would not consider working for a for-profit prison or probation agency. According to the statistics listed, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world in which more than 6 million people are already incarcerated. Furthermore, the research says that private companies operate 264 correctional facilities in the country in which one in every 100 Americans are incarcerated. Speaking recidivism, Ed Kenzakoski for example, took his own life in 2010 because he could not recover from his traumatic experience. Prison should be a form of rehabilitation for those who try to learn and improve from their crimes and reenter society. Instead, I see this as a form of slavery by another name, and even worse, the owners of these prisons are using people’s lives to enrich themselves. To take part in a program like that would make me feel guilty as if I was continuously committing a crime and escaping the consequences. It makes you think how some people can be so money hungry that they are placing the lives of others in a hopeless position to earn profit. There is no price that can be placed on the amount of stress and endurance it took for the time those victims were incarcerated.
Locking people up is a part of the criminal justice system. However, locking children up for the smallest infractions in order to profit off them is not only morally and ethically wrong, but wrong in and of itself. Within this article, researchers and victims discuss their experiences and findings of wrongful cases in which people and children get locked up in order for prisons and judges to benefit. Prosecutors bribing judges to place children in these centers so they profit off their mistakes is wrong. Money is a powerful thing, and in order to get money the people needed these offenders in their facilities, so they used judges to get inmates so they could Epcot off their mistakes. To further their corruption, they would bribe the judges more so when an offender reoffended, even in the slightest, they would be sent back to the facility for more profit. After some time their wrongdoings caught up to them and they were caught, but it still left a negative mark of these victims who had to suffer at the hands of corruption, power, and money. No amount of compensation can make up for the time they had to endure to be profited off. It is incredibly cruel to expect children to be 100% good throughout their lives, but instead of teaching them and giving suitable consequences, greed took over and the system wronged them into for it to profit. So much so, that victims began taking their lives, and some even changed for the worse. Furthermore, I do not stand for profiting off peoples mistakes.
I had no idea about people using prisons to make profits. There is a big potential conflict of interest that is inherent in running prisons for profit. As we saw with “Kids For Cash”, Mark Ciavarella sentenced many juveniles to prison for minor offenses or status offenses under his “Zero Tolerance Policy”. In the documentary, he sentenced a kid on parole back to prison for jumping over a table in the cafeteria. A lot of his decisions were questionable offenses that should not have had sentenced the maximum amount of prison time to these kids. I think that if he was not making money off of sending children to prison, he would not have sent as many kids as he did. I would never consider working for a profit prison or profit probation agency because I feel like that is corrupt to play with people’s lives just to make money. People’s lives are at stake and offering people money to keep the prisons full is crazy to me. Also, even if these corrupt people pull off sentencing people a long sentence for minor offenses for years, it will eventually become known. Robert J. Powell arranged to pay the judges $770,000, and he ended up losing his yacht, jet, and mountain top mansions as a result of the Kids For Cash. He also went to jail for 18 months. Michael Conahan was sentenced to 17.5 years and had to pay $874,000 in restitution. Mark Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in prison for his role in all of this.
I strongly believe it is terribly wrong to incarcerate people for profit. These people are human beings not a commodity. When reading the “Kids for Cash” case, most of the youth either had minor offenses or status offenses. But, with the greed for money, some juveniles were given excess sentencing, so two judges could earn $2.6 million dollars. It was a horrendous act of abuse of power. These juvenile victims’ lives were changed for the worse. Ed Kenzakoski took his own life from not being able to recover from his traumatic experience. Juveniles should receive rehabilitation based on the individual youth’s needs. Regarding the immigration detention centers, ICE relies on private prisons when there is a need for expansion in detention centers. These private prisons typically earn a fee per detainee per night. These detainees experience lack of appropriate controls, supervision, monitoring, and care from the facilities with the potential overuse of solitary confinement, poor nutrition, inadequate safety measures, and insufficient medical care. Some detainees die being contained in these facilities. Private prisons are more concerned about the money they will receive, than a person’s life, which is absolutely wrong.
What do you think about the moral argument of locking people up for profit?-
I honestly believe locking people up for profit is inhumane especially in this case. These kids were literally robbed of their childhoods. Being sent to juvenile detention centers for arguing, a simple school girl fight, receiving stolen property from your parents. Through out the entire film it almost did not seem real, I could not believe these kids were spending years in these places for doing what kids do. There are actual kids who commit serious violent crimes who deserve to be in places like not. I understand the entire logic behind receiving a profit of people in these institutions. But, morally how can you feel comfortable receiving money off of someone you know does not deserve to be there ? Now in cases where children commit violent crimes and they have to serve their time, that is when you receive a profit but in those instances I do not believe it is wrong. Personally I can not agree with profiting off of someone in their lowest moments, it is not right.
I don’t see myself working at a for profit prison because mass incarceration is an enormous problem in the United States to begin with and a for profit prison is only worsening that problem. In the United States today, there are 264 correctional facilities run by private companies. These facilities hold approximately 100,000 adult convicts, with these numbers adding up one in every 100 Americans are being incarcerated. At the end of 2009 19 states were operating at 100 percent or more of their highest capacity, and the federal system was running at 140% of capacity. I think that for profit prisons are making money off of one of the biggest problems int United states, which is mass incarceration. These private companies are simply capitalizing on the overcrowding issue and are making billions of dollars because of it. These are some of the major reasons why I wouldn’t work at a for profit prison.
I know that our justice system is corrupt, but I had no idea to what extent. Learning about the kids for cash scandal absolutely shocked me. I can understand having a no tolerance role for actual crimes, but some of these kids were sentenced years in juvenile detention centers for hardly anything. I can’t even imagine what these children and their families went through.
I have learned about privatized prison institutions in my corrections class sophomore year. private institutions profit from people being imprisoned there. Having these types of institutions that make money off of the incarcerations of individuals can lead to conflicts of interest. Instead of focusing on the recovery and rehabilitation of the prisoners, these institutions can be mainly focused on profit. And they way they make their money is by keeping their prisons populated. The don’t want to rehabilitate their offenders, they want to keep them there for as long as possible to continue to get money from the state. After these offenders reenter society, their recidivism rates are outrageous. These people are more likely to reoffend and end up back in prison. People in power and those who have money are taking advantage of the system and profiting off of those less fortunate.
Morally, I cannot see myself working for a for-profit prison. I could, however, see myself working as a probation officer as they are crucial to rehabilitating those that are on parole. I also understand that prisons need money. They need money for food, power, and wages for prison guards. The issue I have with it, is once money becomes involved in anything, that is where it can get overly complicated very quick. Money may askew certain decisions. For instances, if a prison is struggling to stay afloat, there may be a heavy influence to send more prisoners there for profit. People who may not necessarily need to be there in the first place. I feel as though prisons should not have their capital coming from people they are related to. Instead, it should be government controlled. In an extremely basic and simple way, yes, prisons could be considered government housing. However, it is much deeper than that. As it is not their choice to be there and they do not have the freedoms that others do. On the other hand, though, it is not necessarily people’s choice to live in government housing to begin with. I am sure if given the option the majority would not be selecting government houses in which they would live.
What do you think about the moral argument of locking people up for profit?
To me locking people up for profit is not morally correct, so I feel as if there should be no moral argument. In the website article it shows a flyer that is advertising for “prisons for profit”. This flyer lists many different ways that you can make money from putting people into prisons and jails. The flyer then goes on to say their motto is “Working to make money through Harsher Policies and Longer Sentences.” This is a terrible thought to have, you are literally saying that you want these people to do crime to have longer sentences so that you can then profit off of their pain and struggle. These people are having influences on policies that are leading to long sentences so not only are they controlling these prisons and jails but they also have a hand in controlling the public and society. The prisons that they are controlling have poor conditions and little to no health care for these people that they want so badly to be there. The so called moral argument should not exist because there is no way that locking people up for money supports any upright morals.
Before reading this posting I had some sort of a idea that prisons playing the role in making money off of immigrants and young teens but I did not know of or hear of the kids for cash or any for that fact. It is crazy just to think about the power those people judges had. It doesn’t help these kids what so ever they have grown up in bad situations and lower class areas. They are just looking for someone to guide them to the right direction. But instead are getting taken advantage by the wealthy. It is just unimaginable that people would send kids to prison just to benefit them selves and not give a single thought about what these kids have gone through or even what their gonna. This goes to show how corrupt the system is and how they can even lie to get out of things.
Were you familiar with the concept of “prisons for profit?” What do you think about the potential conflict of interest that may be inherent in running prisons for profit?
I am aware of ‘prisons for profit’ and how it effects juveniles, to low level criminals, and adult habitual offenders. Although “Kids For Cash” is deeply disturbing on many levels, it fascinates me that people are outraged at the judges, and not the system its self. The judges are only one level of a money making system that has lasted for generations. Dating back to mass incarceration of black men, the “chain gang’s”, illegal immigration, etc. I think why this story catches the attention of the public and outrages them, is because these boys were white. I think what really speaks volumes, in terms of this particular story is; it didn’t matter that these young boy’s were white, they were poor, and because they were poor, they are then disposable and will keep quiet. Private prison systems, public prison systems, judges, parole offices, etc. work in cohesion with each other, and it is not to make our world a better place. However, we have to look at the history and what it tells us historically about our prison system and how we also treat little adults AKA juveniles. The system is corrupt, it is a money making system, it rarely provides justice, the U.S has a high recidivism rate for a reason, and it is a long process to “fix” anything, but rarely happens. As I get older, I learn more, listen more, hear more, and my outlook of the world turns more bleak. I want change, and I think everyone does, at least on some level everyone can agree. When I hear these stories, my heart aches for the people involved and I can’t imagine being in that situation. But then I look at the data, I look at statistics, I look at history, and it won’t change or at least not in my lifetime. It truly pains me to see such corruption in systems that are suppose to be helping the “greater good” but are destroying peoples lives.
When it comes to if there is a moral argument about locking people up for profit, there isn’t one because it is not moral at all and you can obviously see that with the “Kids for Cash” story. These children with small offenses got their lives turned upside down and one even took his own life for it. This is not fair to anyone. If you can lock someone up who clearly does not deserve it simply because you get a profit from it you are a sick being. Especially with children. Even with adults, if someone has a minor offense or they are a first time offender and you lock them up, prison changes people and everyone is not strong enough to handle that, especially because there are lesser punishments that are put in place for things like this. That could change their lives as well. There is no way to justify doing this, no matter what anyone says. Yes, there are people that definitely deserve to be in prisons and deserve those harsher sentences, but there is no reason to put people in prisons that do not deserve to be there. Prisons are already overcrowded. It is wrong.
This is my first time hearing about “kids for cash”. This is an interesting way as a get money quick scheme. I can not imagine me, my friends, or my kids when I have any to go through this sort of thing. The fact that 3rd party prisons can be established and used to create profits is insane to me. It just goes to show you you can make money anywhere. This kinda ties in to order maintenance policing where they try to instill fear in to the community so they don’t have issues
This is the first time I heard “kids for cash” scandal. And I was not familiar with the concept “prisons for profit”. But I have learned after reading the article. I use to think that prison are all operate by government, and I have never thought that third party could operate prisons and make profit from that. It might because that prison population has been increased. I wouldn’t consider work for a for-profit prison or probation agency, because I don’t agree with how they operate which is making profit. I think it definitely make difference when prison are for- profit. When prisons are managed by private corporations, there would be many negative outcomes. I think prison is more than a public housing. To me, it’s suppose to change a person, to eliminate their bad thoughts and behaviors and change them. And I think locking people for profit is not moral.
I do remember this story when it came out. It was shocking then, and it is still shocking to this day. Judges need to have more oversight; it is crazy that we put people’s lives in their hands and just let them go. The prisons for profit are horrible, there are time capitalism runs amuck, and this is a prime example. There should not be private-run prisons for anyone. I’m surprised there are 264 private-run prisons in the US; I thought the number would be much lower. Everything about immigrant detention today is a wreck, so, unfortunately, this part of the article is not a surprise. As a former member of the military, I know that a lot of protective equipment is made by prisoners, along with a lot of the furniture we had in our offices. We as a country need to put a stop to this; prison is to reform people and make them a productive member of society, nothing about this process is doing that.
This is the first I’ve heard of the “kids for cash ” scandal. It’s scary for me to believe that something like this actually happened. Especially in my own state. The fact that some one put into a position of judicial authority could easily abuse their power and get away with it is very unsettling. I actually just read an article somewhere about a policemen being convicted for planting drugs on innocent people and arresting them during traffic stops.
The “prison for profit” concept is entirely new to me. I was under the impression that all prisons were run by the government. I don’t believe private prisons should exist. If they are cheaper to run compared to a government ran prison, then there is probably a reason. Private prisons can cut corners more easily and are more concerned about their bottom line than the welfare of their prisoners. Its almost as if the government is turning a blind eye and letting these prisons exist because they save the government money by cutting the corners that the government owned prisons can’t get away with.The whole thing just seems shady.
Were you familiar with the concept of “prisons for profit?” What do you think about the potential conflict of interest that may be inherent in running prisons for profit?
I had not heard about for profit prisons until recently. I used to think that it was not possible for a third party to operate something such as a prison that I believed the government was in charge of. After reading about the increase in the prison populations, most exceeding 100% occupancy, I understand that it seems to be the quickest solution. What better way to alleviate the strain on the justice systems budget and man power than to pay a flat rate per inmate housed in a prison maintained by someone else. However, there are definitely many conflicts of interest that arise when you allow money to be the main focus instead of corrections. These prisons receive money per prisoner. This basically equates all the people in the prison to a dollar amount and nothing more. Diving a bit deeper one could ask why would a for profit prison even want to curb recidivism or prepare an inmate for reentry into society, the more people in the prison plus the others who come straight back is a perfect business model for them. The quality of care is most likely bare minimum as well, because most people know there is no length to the greed large corporations posses. So why would they provide any materials whether small luxuries or educational courses that could assist inmates at all. Finally, just as in the kids for cash reading, these large corporations lobby and deliver cash payouts for judges and lawmakers to increase the amount of jail-able offenses so even the smallest things like swearing and hurting someones feelings online can send you to prison. Which then puts more money in the pockets of the corporations and more anxiety and depression into the souls of the wrongly jailed adults and more importantly children. For profit facilities seem like they could be a real positive when it comes to alleviating overcrowding in current prisons. However we do not live in a perfect world, and money will always be a major motivator for people, not the care for their lives. This is why the whole “for profit prison” model is inherently flawed.
These “Kids for Cash” cases absolutely disgust me. It just goes to show how unjust and corrupt the court systems can be at any time and on any given level. These judges have no morals and do not care about their jobs for them to give unfair sentencing to juveniles that did not do anything wrong. Everyone makes mistakes, especially when they are younger. Stealing candy at a grocery store and swearing are not serious crimes and they should go unpunished. It makes me sick to my stomach that these judges also profited off of these cases and ruined kid’s lives just for a quick buck. I understand that these kids should learn from their mistakes and be punished for them to some extent, but this was just blown way out of proportion. They believed that it would be easy that frame these juveniles because and get away with it. But eventually, everyone gets caught for wrong doing. Being placed in these juvenile detention centers can really ruin a child’s life. The pain and hardships that they go through in these centers can lead to PTSDin the future and it is extremely hard to forget about it horrible things that happened to you. I am relieved to know that these cases have been resolved and this will never happen in the future. The justice system is so corrupt, but it is good to see that the community is realizing this and fighting back.
I have heard about “Prisons for Profits” before but didn’t know much about it. After reading this article it’s honestly just sad to see our judicial system operating in this kind of fashion. The “kids for crash scandal really sheds light on this corrupt scandal. To see judges who are entrusted to pass judgment on those who have done wrong to society and to make the right decisions only use their power for personal gain makes this even worse. For younger teens who commit minor offenses, our first goal should not to give these kids harsher punishments. Yes, these kids need to be punished but not in a way that is going to ruin their life. We need to find a middle ground that is going to show these kids what they did was wrong, but doesn’t set them down the wrong path that we continually see time and time again.
I think it is criminal that people, those in authority, are profiting by locking kids up. The very people that are supposed to protect these kids are the ones benefiting from the institutions that they sentence them to. The judge in Kids for Cash did not even take into consideration the actual situation, or look at the case, he locked them up within minutes of them appearing before him. He would send kids to juvenile detention for the smallest crimes. Without a second thought or deliberation, he sent a girl away for 3 years to a Juvenile detention center for fighting in school. I just think it is evil and predatory for a person to do that to kids, especially judges who are trusted figures that people look up to in the community and who yield the power and the last opportunity for justice. He told all those children and their families that they did not need lawyers and that it would be okay without one. Meanwhile, when they appeared before court they were removed from their parents and sent to juvenile detention centers the same day. Anyone who manipulates justice, especially regarding kids and for profit, are criminals and morally corrupt.
“Juveniles who make mistakes should be taught a tough lesson” and I do not believe that is teaching them the right lesson. Yes, there should be consequences to children’s actions but sending them away is not the answer in no way. In Luzerne County, PA, 6,000 children got sentenced, and the offenses were minor. I never heard of “Kids for Cash” before this article, and I believe it is extremely unfair how the system is to these children instead of helping them. The system is suppose to rehabilitate the children, because jails/prisons main goal is to rehabilitate right? “The purpose of the juvenile justice system, as established in Pennsylvania law, is reform and treatment — not punishment”. I always knew the justice system was “fucked up”, but I never thought they would even think about making money while ruining these children’s lives because it is truly disappointing. I would never work for a private prison because making money off of punishing someone would not make me happy. Even though the jobs inside are beneficial for the inmates, I can not because they are still suffering in jail for nothing. Justice was served and the judges got the time they deserved but it is still unfortunate that they ruined thousands of lives.
The “Kids for Cash” scandal is an unfortunate abomination of the courts and the justice system. It’s incidents like this that hurt the reputation of law and order in this country. When judges, who are supposed to represent the best of the system, become the very problem that the system tries to deter, it becomes even harder for the public to maintain the proper degree of respect for the justice system. After reading this article, the first problem I noticed was “private prison” because I personally believe it is both immoral and unethical to run a prison based on profit. A profit-based prison system leads to exactly what was seen in this scandal, professionals becoming criminals through greed, unfair sentencing and punishments, and corrupt organizations looking to benefit from the increased prison population. In my opinion, both judges should have received the maximum sentence as well as pay the restitution payments to the victims of their corrupt sentencing.
I found it pretty odd that these judges wanted so much money from these victims just to be put into private prisons. These kids were put into these private prisons for long term and were revoked of their constitutional rights to an attorney. In the documentary, “Kids For Cash”, we saw how the long-term effects of detention were that kids did not learn their lesson so much as they sunk into a deep depression as they struggled with post-traumatic stress. After they finished their sentences, the smalles infraction in society would send them right back to juvenile detention. The purpose of our justice system is reform and treatment not punishment. What we need to do as a society is to put these juveniles into programs that teach them how to behave properly not just punish them for what they did. In my opinion, private prisons are an easy way out for any kind of offender because the rules are not as strict. The owners of the prisons that these juvenile victims were in were sued and had to pay up to 4.5 million dollars. The judges who threw these juvenile victims into the private juvenile justice facilities were sued for compensation and are now serving federal prison sentences. According to this article, “Evidence-based research demonstrates the effectiveness of programs designed to keep young offenders from becoming repeat offenders, as well as programs that allow them to seek expungement of their records after their sentence is served.” This is important for these juvenile offenders because this gives juveniles are second chance even while being incarcerated.
I am not too familiar with the terms “kids for cash” or “prison for profit” but it was an interesting reading for sure. I find it as a quite cruel and unusual punishment for the kids to be treated the way that they were, especially for such as minor crime. Also, reading about how the judges got to “pocket millions” kinds of disturbs me because of the benefit. Who benefits from this? Certainly not the children, whose lives have just been affected in a major way that they can’t even understand yet, just so the judges can make a few million? Kids are often prone to doing some stupid minor things, but that’s a part of growing up, being able to distinguish right from wrong. Take Ed Kenzakoski under consideration, a kid who never recovered from an incident and killed himself over the fact. It kind of makes me a little happier to read that some of the judges were tried for this, and getting locked up. Who knows what kinds of things those kids could’ve gotten into if it weren’t for the judges looking out for only themselves. The judges may or may not be able to pay the money back to these families seeking compensation, but they can change the struggle that they put the kids through. I believe that private prisons can be a good thing, if used in the correct way and benefiting both parties. Prisons that actually focus on rehabilitation, and give inmates the opportunity to work so they can actually do something when they get out gives them hope and something to look forward to. So again, I believe that private prisons can be a “good” thing, if they are doing the “right” thing. I am not to familiar with ICE but I found it very interesting that 65% of detainees were held in private prisons. It makes sense since they are in The United States illegally, to be held at a little more higher standard, depending on where they go, and susceptible to paying fees for staying there as well.
i find this absolutely sick. The fact that these kids have to go through this is terrible. Being a young kid i always used to think about what would happen if i took all the candy from the gas station down the street from my house and just ran away with it. I never did it obviously but i couldn’t imagine if i would have had to serve jail time as a consequence for it. After reading these web post i can’t even imagine how hard it must be for some of these kids. I understand they may not follow the rules but there his a difference between severe punishment and being taught not to continue their wrongdoings. A kids life can go through a downward spiral due to the consequences of their punishment they had to go through. I find it unnecessary for kids who do these little dink and dunk crimes or even little offenses to be sent to juvenile detention. It makes no sense to me at all. A lot of what the government does today doesn’t make sense to me. Ive said this so many times and i will say it again, this is the future of our country and it needs to be treated as such. Kids need to be taught how to act and what to do and what not to do. Thats the job of their parents and the family members around them. It feels however that the government takes too much authority in these instances and can ruin a kids life.
The term “kids for cash” or “prisons for Profit” is a bit disturbing to me. I don’t think it’s fair for corrupt politicians to market around the gullible minds of children when most of them aren’t aware of their actions. The private prison industry and industrial prison complex is a prime example of how greedy America is as a whole. The prison system is utilized as a modern form of slavery where they manipulate and brainwash the youth to create a constant cycle of criminals for free labor. Under the 13th amendment, slavery was never abolished. In fact, it was reformed where slavery was once deemed unconstitutional with the exception of slavery as punishment. With prisons full of inmates, companies such as Starbucks, Victoria’s Secret, Whole Foods utilize prison labor to boost corporate profits. Originally I thought prison was a place to punish and reform individuals who committed criminal offenses, but after doing the research I was wrong. I now see prison as a slave plantation where slavery is preferred because gaining freedom is difficult. Meaning most who get convicted of a crime tend to go back because it’s all they know.
I am familiar with the concept of “prisons for profit I just didn’t think it was happening on such a big scale level. When I think about the potential conflict of interest that may be inherent in running prisons for profit. I think of crooked politicians and how they us their power to gain profit. I wouldn’t consider working for a for-profit prison or probation agency because I don’t agree with their methods of operation. Also I rather see more rehabilitation centers then private prisons. When it comes to outcomes (i.e. time served, recidivism) when prisons are managed by private corporations. Prisons become over capacitated increasing violence in the prison population. Some people like to think of prison as a form of government-subsidized public housing. prison to me is a place that is supposed to hold people with bad impulse/behavior until they are able to re enter the community if they can re enter. To me the prison system is now used for personal gain for the rich, and under the trump administration being used for racialization in the aspect of detention centers for immigrant.
This entire situation actually makes me sick to my stomach. This was an absolute atrocity and i’m glad it was brought to light. 6,000 juveniles affected by this? Absolutely insane. I know as a 13 year old kid we would steal a pack of gum or something small just because with wanted the “thrill”. I cannot imagine how my life would have turned out if I did a year or two of harsh punishment for it. Kids need to be taught that is wrong, not punished severely. If i would have been one of these kids my social skills would have not developed properly and who is to say that I wouldn’t have gotten into drugs and more crime just from being a part of the system. I am glad these dirty corrupt judges and lawyers got the time they deserved. They ruined hundreds if not thousands of lives and I am happy that the one lawyer lost his yacht and mountain top mansion. I am going to watch the full documentary for sure!
I believe that for the minor offenses that these young people committed, they do not deserve prison time. It teaches nothing and does not help them later in life. “Kids for cash” is something that was new to me to learn about. This system needs to help these children instead of being unfair to them. It opened my eyes by providing information on how much this can damage a young persons life. This private prison industry seems to be the major cause for this scandal.
I would work for a private prison because there are many benefits. The first reason is that the prisoner population levels are appropriately maintained. Over crowding a prison can turn into a lot of fights or arguments that we do not want. Another reason to work for a private prison is because the jobs that are there. In order to have a private prison, there must be a full staff. This includes guards, cooks, doctors and nurses, supply clerks, administrative support. Not only is this good for the prisoners to keep them healthy and taken care of when need be but it also holds a lot of job opportunities for the community. These are a variety of jobs. I feel that the private prisons hold jobs for every type of person. You could be a doctor at this private prison or something simple like a cook. I do not think working for a private prison is the worst job out there.
“Prisons for Profit” is something that I have heard of, just never knew much about. I remember hearing about the PA case of both judges. Though, punishment is great I feel, treatment for those under the age of 18, would work best (Depending on the crime obviously). Minor crimes such as those stated above, do not deserve severe prison time. I myself will NEVER work as a PO. I do not have the patience to deal with the paper work involved with that career. Even if a minor served prison time until after they turned 18, from the words above, punishment teaches nothing. They don’t get the full idea as to why their crime was wrong. Instead, they get told they are spending this amount of time in jail and that’s it. I do agree that people who have been convicted before go back to jail because they are so used to that lifestyle.
After learning of this monstrosity my wonder was why was he able to do this for so long. Why was he able to rule a kid into a privately owned prison for cursing or something minor, why was the government not looking into this right away. If I were a parent with a kid who came across this judge with his rulings like this I would question it. I would do whatever I could to make a change. I’m all for serving justice the right way but nothing seems right when your putting kids in the same prison for such small offenses. It’s sick how they can change someone’s whole life for the worse for money, blood money Is what it is. some of these people never recovered they were just kids and they put them in such a compromising situation on their mental health. No moral person could do this
We talked about this in class a looooong time ago. The window for getting credit is long past.
Were you familiar with the concept of “prisons for profit?” What do you think about the potential conflict of interest that may be inherent in running prisons for profit?
I was not familiar about prisons for profit before reading about “kids for cash”. This is an exact example of how corrupt our justice system is. Not only are adults and our youth being locked away for petty or minor offenses, people within the system are profiting from it as well. Part of a judge’s job is to make decision in the pursuit of justice. Just as in the scam “kids for cash” where the two judges were getting paid for sending juveniles away you never know who in the system to trust to make a fair and lawful decision if a judge cant and thats suppose to be their job.
Some people like to think of prison as a form of government-subsidized public housing. What do you think?
I would never work for a for-profit organization because I do not agree with sending people to jail for one’s own gain. I believe that prison is exactly what it is. Prison is where you go as a punishment for a crime you commit. Subsidized housing is low income housing for middle class or low class people. In these subsidized housing you have a home. Prison can not be a form of government subsidized housing in my opinion. While in prison you never hear of anyone saying their living conditions are great and they are comfortable where they lay at night because prison is not a home.
Were you familiar with the concept of “prisons for profit?” What do you think about the potential conflict of interest that may be inherent in running prisons for profit?
I have heard about the concept of prisons for profit before reading about the kids for cash scandal. To be honest it is disgusting. The fact that people can make profit off of incarcerating people is down right an embarrassment to us as a society. Most of those incarcerated are locked up for minor drug offenses, when you combine this with the war on drugs and zero tolerance policies you’ll surely get an over abundance of prisoners. The private prison industry and industrial prison complex is a great example of what happens when we let corrupt politicians rule us and the dangers of trusting the government, at the end of the day we are all just a living price tag.
Another thing I found interesting is the amount of goods produced by prisons. Something I discovered was that about 60% of the armed forces uniform and gear comes from prisoners working for Unicor. Unicor was developed in order to “help rehabilitate prisoners and give them useful life skills they can use when they get out” however those in the program get paid less than a dollar per hour. This raises another issue, a question of ethics; is this a modern day form of slavery? In my opinion, that is exactly what it is. With events like the kids for cash scandal, we would see more youth walking into future problems and increased chances of recidivism just so someone can make a profit and it makes me sick to my stomach.
The kids for cash scandal was a hugecase in the PA area and it really identified a lot of flaws with our juvenile justice system. The fact the the judges could make these kinds of decisions about children’s lives for such simple crimes without any oversight or notice from higher ups is a problem in and of itself. Sentences to camps and detention centers for simple crimes that could be handled by a suspension were excessive and unessary. It caused children to be more likely to commit crime because of things they had learned in the detention center. In a system where childrens lives are being affected there should be and should have been more oversight. The cash part that came in later was even more of an issue because it meant that while he claimed to have the children s best interest at heart when he was doing this he obviously still had his own at a higher interest. While he succeeded in getting the new center built his actions did not help the children there in any way and the only ones that bennifitted from it were himself and others involved on’t the scandal.
This video really is and eye opener not to me but I am sure other people as well. The judges I believe impacted these kids lives in not so good of a way. The one girl said she has PTSD from being sent away for her crime that she committed. The one other kid has been away and locked up even after the initial appearance. although some kids did have very big plans for their lives after the incident and they tried not to let it affect them negatively. Judges are usually paid big bucks to hopefully try to prevent incidents like these from occurring.
kids for cash is something that i think you would only see in a movie. I’m so surprise of how many kids he was able to put away, before they did anything about it. the fact that he didn’t think he did anything wrong even after all of the facts were out. also how he was think he was helping the kids by sending them away. i thin k that its many people that think like him and they need to be kept away from power, because something like this should never happen again.
When you brought up the topic kid for cash, it sounded familiar like i seen it the newspapers when I was younger. But, watching the movie really opened up my eyes to the corruption that was going on in my home state a almost a decade ago. in the movie these kids were send to jail because a judge got a pay off for every head he put in the detention center. Its sad to think what these kids in the documentary had to go through. A lot of the times when young youths are places in these facilities they experience depression, abuse and skills others wise would lead to future crimes, like stealing ect.. because that what they learned in there.
Overall, “Kids for Cash” was a case that I was not familiar with. Everything in the video that was presented in class was new to me, and it was disappointing to watch. The juvenile justice system’s goal should be to rehabilitate children who need help, not to damage them even more. Judges are supposed to be impartial decision makers in the pursuit of justice. In this case, children were not being represented correctly and caused the children to be misunderstood by society. Furthermore, the youth are punished much more in the U.S than in any other country. I believe that the problem starts there. Children should be diverted from the juvenile justice system instead of constantly being dragged into it.
The kids for cash scandal really opened my eyes that corruption can happen in any job field. Importantly, the fact that two senior judges with lots of years and crediantials would go this low to gain more money is sad. To point out, isn’t the reason judges are paid high salaries is to prevent situations like these to occur. Sadly, some of the children that had to go through that experience never were able to adjust and make it out of the horror.
Before reading this and watching the movie, I was aware of the kids for cash scandal, but didn’t know much more about it than that people were making money out of locking up juveniles. After learning more about it, all I have to say is the morality of locking people up for profit is horrendous. As stated in the reading, “The purpose of the juvenile justice system, as established in Pennsylvania law, is reform and treatment – not punishment.”, so locking people up just for a profit has no positive effect towards reform or treatment. It’s basically punishment. As a society we want to help offenders, especially juveniles, to get back on their feet and on the right track. So, making a profit out of individuals getting locked away will most likely only want to make those who profit, keep making a profit by having those individuals come back time and time again into the system. It deters the real motive of wanting to reduce the recidivism rate and reform those individuals back into society as a positive member of the community. As it has already been proven by lots of research, keeping teens locked away only causes negative impacts such as PTSD. Amanda from the film was a prime example. After she came out of the system, she was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. It was ironic to me how in the video is showed Ciavarella upset because he would be in jail and unable to watch his grandkids grow up. But how do you think Edward Kenzakoski’s mother feels now that her son is gone forever and she can never watch him grow up and prosper all because a judge wanted to make money off of him? There are no positive reasons to be making money out of locking people up for profit. There is no explanation at all to justify the morality of locking people up for profit.
The video and this article really opened my eyes to how quickly a juvenile’s life could be ruined, and continue into their adult life. I am shocked how the judge thought that it was alright to send juveniles to a prison or detention center, even though it was he received payment he had to have known he was ruining these kids lives. The point of juvenile justice is to reform and teach these kids but what he did to them was pure punishment. The worst part is that he took money to ruin lives of kids that committed very minor crimes if a crime at all in some eyes. I think if these kids would have just been punished by the school their lives would have turned out better. Being locked up changes them, teaches them other illegal things, and causes post traumatic stress.
Obviously, the Kids for Cash scandal is extremely upsetting. However, in my opinion, the real problem is the private prison industry. The new facility that was built during the kids for cash scandal provided an opportunity for these corrupt judges to make big profits. The private prison industry as a whole seems to be very corrupt. Their whole business plan is to detain as many people as possible. Private prison companies, such as The Geo Group or CCA, are able to capitalize on the United States’ overly strict criminal justice system. Reform is clearly needed and eliminating the private prisons should be the first change made. Unfortunately, big business controls lots of the politics in the US and getting rid of private prisons would be very difficult. Also, the current administration seems to support private prisons a great deal and sees them as a way to detain illegal immigrants before they are deported.
After watching and reading about “Kids for Cash” I cannot believe how these youths were treated. Even if the children committed minor offenses, they could still be sentenced to prison. It is terrible that people did not find out Michael Conahan’s and Mark Ciavarella’s illegal actions sooner. It could have saved many children’s lives, especially the kid that committed suicide in the video. With these men in prison, they can face the problems the children went through.
When we watched “Kids for Cash” in class I was just in total shock. When we first saw the opening scene of the judge’s campaign video I though wow what a strong rooted guy. His zero tolerance approach at first sounded great. I would of even voted for him myself. But having saw what was done, and his actions I know disagree completely. I’m sure the community also felt the same way when having saw the outcome. For this to happen in Pennsylvania made me uncomfortable, I never thought something like this could happen so close. The aftermath of each child’s life was heartbreaking. Some of these kids came out with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. One even committed suicide. Who of known what or how these kids in involved in this scandal would’ve turned out if they were not sent to juvenile detention centers for years on petty crime. I can see how the family’s involved would have trust issues pertaining to law officials, I would too. You go into a courtroom trusting the system and in 30 seconds to 3 minutes your whole life changes because of a petty misdemeanor. It is scary to think that we have higher officials as far as judges abusing their power for cash on the side. These judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, got what they deserved as far as sentencing.
Being sick I had to watch Kids for Cash on my own time but It does show me that when it comes to the priorities of certain people, they think more about money than they do the well being of children. One scene that stuck out to me in the film was when they were interviewing locals at a shop appeared to be named Tony’s. This stuck out to me because these were the people who put there trust in Conahan and Ciavarella, so I can only assume that they lost a huge amount of trust for the courts systems.
From reading the article there were a few things that stood out to me personally. One of which was in the immigrant detention section of this page in which 65% of ICE inmates were being held in private facilities. This to me shows where the head space of these companies are, and to me and my opinion it shows that they are not doing there job to do a good job but instead they are trying to get as much money as they possible can through this field of work. It shows to me personally that they do not care about the work they do, only the money. If they did care they would not use private facilities and instead use systems already in place.
Another thing for me is that it shows how people move around to where the controversy is in order to make money. In the start of this article, kids were the point of conversation and how people were making a profit, but now the focus is on immigration and that is where the money is trying to be made. It shows how easily and smoothly the transferred from one area to another in an attempt to make profit.
I never knew anything like that was happening until we started learning and watching a video about this problem. This problem was really upsetting because they were ruining children lives just to make extra money. I never heard about this problem in the news when it was happening.Even after they got out of their punishment some of the kids still had issues and a good amount of them didn’t need to go to detention centers. While they were in these centers most of them were being abused and mistreated. You would think that people with high power and that are looked upon by the community would do the right thing. That just goes to show you that some people with that power just tend to abuse if they get something in return like what was happening here. It’s just sad to see what happen to these kids that went through this. It also seems that when kids go through this they don’t get the help that they need and that just makes the detention centers pointless if they are just abusing the kids that go through this system.
It is extremely disheartening to to see and read about the Kids for Cash scandal. I had never heard news regarding this before so I knew nothing about it. I’m disgusted not just by the fact that judge Ciavarella would take kickbacks for sending kids to this facility, but by the simple fact that even before this he treated juveniles so harshly. I don’t know how he continued to hold his seat for so long when he clearly did not have children’s best interests at heart in the way he sentenced at treated them.
After watching “Cash For Kids” video, I found it unbelievable that people would ruin juveniles lives to make a profit. Juveniles are the future and having them spend time in prison for petty crimes is ridiculous. Taking away a period of their childhood and possibly ruining the rest of their lives. The two judges involved disgust me because they sentenced innocent juveniles to prison so they can make a profit. I do not know how they thought they could get away with doing so. After the two judges were caught and sentenced to prison themselves, I was relieved to see them gone because that’s not what we as citizens need in the criminal justice system.
Reading and watching the movie about Kids For Cash is very upsetting. It unbelievable that something like this happened so close, and I don’t remember hearing about it. It’s especially upsetting when you hear in the news that as a result of the whole thing, a kid killed himself. It is also a little scary to think that there are people that were willing to do this. These were people that are representing the population in regards to the CJS and we are trusting that they are doing the right thing. Clearly some officials abuse their power, and we must make sure we are hiring people that are truly who they say they are.
This is a perfect example of how very complex issues and incidents are portrayed as overly simplified with emotion evoking terms like “kids for cash.” Though I don’t defend the two judges involved much more needs to be analyzed to gain a fuller understanding of the situation in its entirety. Ciavarella, the judge that the documentary focused more on, had already had a well known reputation for being very strict legalistic way of handling his court decisions. He was known well before the “kids for cash” scandal as a judge that put away many children for even minor infractions. This is an often overlooked fact when discussing the scandal; Ciavarella did not just start sentencing kids to placements when the new facility was built. Secondly and just as importantly, the manner in which the schools themselves are dealing with children misbehaving has become more and more inappropriate. Police and dedicated school officers should not be used as the primary disciplinarian option. Kids that get in fights, talk back to teachers, and simply misbehave in general are not sent to the principal’s office for a lecture. Instead they are sent to the on-school-grounds police officer who may arrest the child, where not too long ago this would have never been the case. The incorporation of school based police are partly based on the theory of deterrence, which empirical studies show is not a very policy at dealing with offenders, and especially youth. Not only does this increase the chances of arrest for typical juvenile misbehavior, which in an of itself is an undesirable outcome, but that in turn also creates more opportunities for one a juvenile’s first interactions with law enforcement be a very negative one. With the officer becoming a primary disciplinarian, an “us vs. them” mentality is created between the juvenile and law enforcement, which only does a disservice to law enforcement by creating a community that is unwilling to help them when their help is needed.
This cash for kids should break the hearts of all that read this or even watch the movie. Two grown men that millions trust with being Judges to our juveniles took advantage of their situations and got greedy. They took money to ruin kids lives. I don’t understand how someone can feel good about taking advantage of kids and know what damage throwing someone in jail can do to that person. This crime is so unreal it makes you want to make sure nothing else like this will ever happen… but heck we could have some in our criminal justice system right now! We need to make sure the ones we hire are true to what they do. Our criminal justice system isn’t lined with bad people but the few that are need to be removed as soon as possible.
“Kids for Cash” is completely heart breaking. These kids were doing minor things that kids at a young age do, its normal to get into fights and spit, spit balls but to be put away in a detention center for YEARS is insane, especially for a kids first offense. For these judges to take an oath and abuse their powers is disgusting. They knew what they were doing was wrong and if they didn’t see what they were doing as being wrong, than they had no business being a judge. The years they received don’t amount up to the many of kids lives they ruined. What is mind blowing to me is that Mark Ciavarella got into trouble when he was younger, received a second chance, now he had the power to give other kids second chances and he decided to put them away for years. This is a prime example of someone of higher power abusing their power. And he knew he was dealing with people of a lower class so he basically said lets get over on the parents by making them sign a waiver to sign over their kids rights. The parents were thinking well, because he’s in that big chair, has an education its only right that he knows what is best for my child, when in reality he only knew what was best for him, and that was putting these kids away so that it could benefit him. He even mentioned in his interview” he did what he had to do in order to put his kids through college” to me, doing what you have to do sounds like even putting other peoples kids away so that your kids have a better life. Both of these former judges had to be accountable for their actions, like Mark made clear when these kids stood before him and he put them away, away from their families, and taking away their most important teenage years. The sentence was fair, and I was angry when Mark was crying in the interview when they sentenced him, because he was not going to see his grandkids grow up, but now he knows what those kids parents that he put away felt when they found out they weren’t going to see their kids for years.
From watching the Kids for Cash film I’ve seen how bad privatized institutions are for any state because all they want is money for themselves and no one else. I think Ciavarella knew he was doing wrong even before he started committing juveniles for petty crimes. He was using a get tough method on juveniles whenever he visited the schools and made sure no kid violated their school rules. Although I agree that there should be a zero tolerance policy for certain violations in school they should go straight to the police with handling the problem it should be addressed in the school. The other people who were involved with Ciavarella didn’t think much of his plans but agreed to them anyway and understood that they used juveniles for profit and built the detention center just to get extra cash. The kids from the film had to start their lives over because of being in the juvenile detention center and it was a difficult process for some of them.
Reading about events like these strikes tons of disappointment in me about our justice system. I think that the two judges have influenced a bunch of the delinquent behavior amongst these juveniles, mainly by the ways they handed these kids such harsh sentences for their less than petty crimes. They were punished way to harshly and just the time of being away creates so much stress and negative thoughts in ones head. For example the story of Justin Bodnar, who during his sentence tried marijuana and heroin for the first time. Heroin is just about the worse drug a human can use and sadly Justin’s placement in a juvenile detention center for an argument with another students mother, led to him trying drugs for the first time. Their are much more serious stories of juvenile individuals who have been abused, this is just one.
Ive known that we have a corrupt justice system but to think that kids were being sentenced for things that weren’t even truly crimes is just disappointing. Cant wait to learn more about these topics and what we can do to prevent them in this class.
Before reading this, I was aware of the kids for cash scandal, but didn’t know much more about it than that people were making money out of locking up juveniles. After learning more about it, all I have to say is the morality of locking people up for profit is horrendous. As stated in the reading, “The purpose of the juvenile justice system, as established in Pennsylvania law, is reform and treatment – not punishment.”, so locking people up just for a profit has no positive effect towards reform or treatment. It’s basically punishment. As a society we want to help offenders, especially juveniles, to get back on their feet and on the right track. So, making a profit out of individuals getting locked away will most likely only want to make those who profit, keep making a profit by having those individuals come back time and time again into the system. It deters the real motive of wanting to reduce the recidivism rate and reform those individuals back into society as a positive member of the community. As it has already been proven by lots of research, keeping teens locked away only causes negative impacts such as PSD. There are no positive reasons to be making money out of locking people up for profit. There is no explanation at all to justify the morality of locking people up for profit.
Before reading this posting I was aware of prisons playing the role in benefiting off of immigrants and young teens but I did not now of the kids for cash scandal or the more recent prison for profit scandal. I think that it scary to think that the judges behind the kids for cash scandal had the power and authority they once did. There decisions in imprisoning these young teens for minor crimes just to benefit off of them resulted in many young lives being ruined. I also had no idea that ICE was ordered to create more detention centers just for immigrants. This is very troubling to learn because it shows how corrupt our prison system still is. The prison system is literally dehumanizing these immigrants and exploiting them in prisons, just to make money off of them. Sadly this is become a growing business as more and more immigrants are put in these types of placing and unfortunately the system is set up so that this can continue to happen.
I was shocked when reading about the kids for cash scandal. I can not imagine anyone with any sense of morality sending children to prison in order to benefit their personal wants and needs. Minor offences do not constitute getting thrown in jail and having your life ruined by things such as PTSD and gateway drug use. These prison sentences had a permanent effect on the life and future of many of the children who were put into the system. It is amazing how history continues to repeat itself as the same use of tough crime legislature is being used in current day prisons. By playing on the emotions of the public in regard to crime, vulnerable groups such as immigrants are being targeted in mass amounts. This false perception that immigrants largely contribute to crime in America allows these prisons to capitalize on the mass incarceration of these people. As long as the general public continues to believe in this illusion of a crime epidemic the prison system will always thrive.
The idea of kids for cash is something that is very foreign. After reading the article, it has become clear how much of this practice I have been exposed to without even realizing it. I’ve seen my fair share of fights in the different schools I have attended but i’ve never seen a punishment amount to more than a simple slap on the wrist. The entire idea of kids for cash prevents children that come from broken homes and tough backgrounds, who act out and starve for the attention of some leadership figure, from getting the proper attention and the opportunities to straighten themselves out. This program sets children up for a life of poor choices and negative outcomes. The children need to receive some form of guidance, a strengthening of morals, or a balanced environment for them to grow. People are the most impressionable at young ages and throwing them in prison for menial crimes will not serve their best interest. Children benefit for leadership through a firm but gentle hand, being taught life’s lessons and learning morals while being taught to love and grow into their own positively impactful member of society.
The abuse of the youth in America that is described throughout this article is sickening and still somehow not so shocking at all. The abuse of the lower class by the wealthy elites in society is a fairly common theme in this day and age. However, the fact that men like Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella had the audacity to go after a large portion of a generation of children. Schemes like “Kids for Cash” speak volumes on how corrupt our governing body has become. Even going far enough to gamble with the future of the nation by condemning its future into a harsh and unforgiving cycle of incarceration for menial infractions. The corruption that is constantly running rampant through our judicial system is a cancer to this nation and must be addressed. It is a scary thing when the government institution in charge of enforcing the law and ensuring fair and equal justice in a community is overflown with corruption and self determination.
I am highly aware of ‘prisons for profit’ and I find them to be disgusting. I already knew of the mass incarceration of illegal immigrants as a method for these places to increase profits further, but I did not realize that we were flooding prisons just to do so. The inherent problem with running this kind of organization is that the idea and supposed soul purpose of correctional institutions goes right out the window. “You’re in trouble, so we’re going to teach you a lesson.” Sure, one could argue that an illegal immigrant will learn to “stop crossing into our borders illegally”, however, how can this lesson actually be applied if they’re never allowed to leave the system? Or if they die within the system because these people who haven’t committed horrible crimes are being bunked with others who have committed horrible crimes? Within these for profits prison systems, the whole purpose of *correction* is not even being applied.
To think of prison as a form of government subsidized public housing would be like thinking of an animal kill shelter as doggy day care. Yes, it provides an outlet for people who have been arrested to be put somewhere, but it cannot even compare to subsidized public housing. The point of subsidized public housing is to provide an option for those in need. Prison, especially these for profit prisons are meant to harbor people without providing any positive returns for them. They live in cramped and unlivable situations. The prison in Cibola County, New Mexico that had its inmates removed due to poor medical care, is being reopened as a place to detain immigrants. Of course, the problems that were present before the prison was shut down have not been changed in any substantial way. That would be like removing families from their homes due to a termite problem, not exterminating the termites, and letting other families move into these homes. It is horrific to think the Trump administration is pushing for the arrest of immigrants and other low-level offenders, inducing these unfair prison situations.
Prior to reading this I was not aware of the concept of “prisons for profit.” It’s sickening knowing that government officials are incarcerating children for their own profit–then attempt to lie their way out of it. It’s a common misconception that kids are sent to juvenile delinquent centers in order to learn from their mistakes and to move on in life as better people. In actuality, these centers introduce young kids to drugs, gangs and other harmful activities. These kids are locked up for swearing, stealing a CD from a walmart or other small mistakes. It’s crazy to think that one small mistake made as a kid could have such detrimental effects in the future such as drug use and even suicide. Kids come out of these centers and are immediately seen as delinquents. This target on their backs will pave out their future, most-likely down a dark path. Locking people up, especially children, for profit has absolutely no morals whatsoever. The justice system should work lock up dangerous people in society and not young kids who’ve made mistakes. They should work to help these kids and to push them in the right direction in life, not lock them away.
It is so sad to recognize how these institutions takes advantage of these young teens. It’s a misconception to think that in juvenile detention centers, kids learn how to behave. They are abused and go through PTSD because of the amount of harm they experience in these centers. A lot of the time the crimes that they comit are really small, but because these institutions profit off of the amount of children that are placed in these centers, they are quick to place them in these centers. For example, some kids were placed in juvie because they sweared, got in fist fights, or stole cd’s at walmart. Small actions led to huge consequences. The kids often times end up depressed and in some cases take their lives. Others try drugs for the first time. It was shocking to learn this because I remember as a kid I was just told that juvie is a place where kids were sent if they did really bad crimes, but I never realized how it was a place that took advantage of young teens.
I remember when the Kids for Cash scandal made state-wide news back when I was in middle school. It was terrifying how Mark Ciavarella had preyed on kids my age to make money. What was even more terrifying was the number of kids he was able to put away for profit while hiding behind the guise of tough love and law and order. He was elected and even re-elected by the illegitimate fear instilled in the public of dangerous teens who could perpetrate another Columbine. Still, he remains unapologetic and dismissive of any suggestions that money was the real reason he was sentencing so many juveniles. We see the same situation now where those benefiting from for-profit prisons support tough on crime legislation. Again, they claim their primary motive is punishing criminals and improving society. For Ciavarella and Conohan, it was easy to frame unruly teenagers as some kind of violent, school shooter archetype and make their voters believe there was some menacing problem that needed to be nipped in the bud by locking kids up early with little mercy or compassion. Then they were safe to collect their profit for several years with no questions asked. Still, those with little power are targeted for these lucrative operations. As long as the public is crippled with fear of crime epidemics that can only be solved with mass incarceration, it’s easy for prisons to make it seem justified.
“Fear,” as you point out, is a very powerful motivator; it’s used time and again to cowe citizens and keep them in line. Over and over again, they vote for the most corrupt people, who themselves are doing irreparable social harm. Politicians use fear for a reason – it works!