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(Photo: abardwell/flickr)
If you’ve been following the excellent postings of WhyIHateCCA, you likely have a good understanding of how the for-profit prison industry is warping American laws and society in order to ensure a steady supply of occupants for its jails.
Now, we see examples of what has long been feared would happen. Judges are being paid to send people — in this case, kids – to the for-profit pokeys:
Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, plead guilty in open court that they sentenced children to juvenile detention because they were paid off to do it by the PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare corporation that ran the private facilities.
Ciavarella wrote in a letter to the court,
“Your statement that I have disgraced my judgeship is true. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame.”
The price paid by these companies for the services of two judges? $2.6 million.
We cannot, must not, allow the privatizers to take over our criminal justice system.
33 Comments
And just to remind everyone – we’re talking children here – not 16 year olds. Twelve year olds. and some of these kids, even after being released, are completely messed up. I read of at least one suicide.
“I was 12 years old when I got locked up. I had no clue what to say when he asked me how do I plead,” Eric told “20/20″ correspondent Jim Avila.
“I was 12 years old. I didn’t know too much about the court system.”
His offense? He went joyriding with his mom’s car and ran over a barrier, smashing the undercarriage. No one was hurt, not even Eric, but in order get her insurance to pay for the damage, his mom, Linda Donovan, had to file a police report. Donovan even thought an appearance before a judge would be good for her son, give him a little scare. She wasn’t prepared for what happened when Eric came before Ciavarella.
“He read me my charges and said, ‘How do you plead?’ And I didn’t know what to say, so I looked at my mom, and I guess she didn’t know I was looking, and I said, ‘Guilty,’” Eric said.
“That’s when I turned around, I looked at my mom and she started crying.”
Eric was locked up for two years.http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=7178686&page=1#.T4bbQNkZtJw
““Your statement that I have disgraced my judgeship is true. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame.”
Such a statement is not even close to remorse, coming from this person, whose greed altered lives. “My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish” would read “My actions have harmed children and their families…”
As Toby points out, these are children. Talk about child abuse, placing them in such an environment. The state we live in, Kentucky, one of the nation’s leaders in locking up children, locks them up for non-crimes, routinely: truancy and other “status offenses” they are called.
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20111211/NEWS01/312110023/status-offenders-1
Greed is big business in this country, and the greedy people have found yet another group of the marginalized vulnerable to line their pockets: children.
rec’d.
Indeed.
What a heartless bastard. He is a disgrace to the legal profession.
Oh, and did you see this? Requiring High Occupancy Rates
http://www.jlc.org/legal-docket/re-jvr
Here’s one young woman’s story:
I hope these corrupt creeps will do time for this.
In the same prison where they sent those poor kids.
Ciavarella was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison, Aug 2011
Good to hear it. Thanks.
Only the vilest of scum would act as these judges acted. Decades in prison will never undo the damage they did to the children they incarcerated.
Just slightly off topic but humanity has evolved very little socially. In addition to locking up our kids here for money, I was just reading about Indian girls being killed because the dads wanted boys. THAT IS FUCKED UP!
I know I have read and seen this in various parts of the world but it still fucks with me everytime I read this. Where the hell is leadership on this planet with issues like these.
Thank You Phoenix..
I was at a forum two days ago on the role of Judges and racism. It was in the Philips neighbourhood in south Minneapolis.
But more important Thank you. Senator Amy Klobuchar (former prosecuter) just has VP Joe Biden to town. For a $1,000 a plate dinner. Senator Klobuchar now has $10 million in the banks. She also has the loving praises of the corporate media.
The Minnesota Democratic Party and their allies in the Minnesota Republican Party have showed their willingness to destroy democracy, openness and transparency. Along with the willingness to attempt to silence and squelch any and all voices of critical dissent. By any and all underhanded, mean, sneaky means.
You, sorry I mean they will fail. You folks have just played right into my hands.
Thank You.
Oh yes and
Namaste
2551 expunged records suggest the other judge had as many. SO it works out roughly to 4-500.00 per kid. I suppose the prison owners just called it a finders fee. So for 500 bucks these judges were to commit an act of violence against a child whose life would be permanently altered. They and their families would basically be destroyed and have to start all over again. PLus they would have juvenile records which would make it difficult or impossible to find work or enroll in some schools. All for 500 bucks. And this surely is not an isolated case.
Grin
Just how many Phoenix’s are there? Exteremistgreenie- cute name.
This is just sad
True.
meant as reply to szielinski @12
By the way, the for-profit prison industry loves both the War on Some Drugs and mandatory minimums, as well as the laws against undocumented workers. All of these laws contribute to making the US the most jail-happy nation on earth and making for-profit captains of prison industry very rich.
Although I would never advocate or support it, I do occasionally think that there really are some folks who should just be taken out behind the chemical shed and shot.
Thanks, PW: recommended.
Update: The PA governor has signed new legislation, prompted by this scandal, that 1. Requires judges to document reasons for detention and 2. Requires the children to be represented by counsel, and
““You’ll recall during the scandal, a 10-year-old child was taken away in shackles, removed from their parents,” said the Republican from the 20th Pennsylvania Senate District. “We’re going to have an elimination of that ability to shackle young people coming out of the courtroom unless there is a clear and present danger.”
http://wnep.com/2012/04/09/governor-signs-juvenile-justice-laws-in-luzerne-county/
Also, while 28 years in Federal prison for racketeering (no parole in federal system) is a start, the guy really needs to sit for quite a while in a dank county jail isolation cell where he no doubt sent many, and think about his actions.
Is the company losing their state contracts? Are the judges being sued by the families?
Both the for Profit Prison and the Judges are guilty of Kidnapping are they being charged with it.
Those judges and the for profit prison that bribed them then set up the circumstances for that suicide a reasonable person can certainly foresee that kids sent to prison very well might commit suicide.
I hope they get life.
There is an unwritten law for any nation, that if they are to have a future, the young must be provided for and protected.
In Amurika we eat our young for profit.
Lets see if the Media even covers this story. My guess is this story which is kidnapping and murder of children won’t get the press coverage Sarah Palin gets at a Tea Bagger rally of 100 people.
There will be no consequences for the corporation, besides a token fine, aka “the cost of doing business”.
The judges are just an example of the law in this country. All judges are guilty. These two took money, and there are many others still on the bench who do as well. But the vast majority of judges do not take money. But don’t tell me they don’t know. Don’t tell me there’s no idea this is going on by other judges and lawyers.
How about the lawyers who were present in the courtroom when thousands of children were sent to abuse and have their lives shattered. How many lawyers knew? How many did nothing, just like most judges?
“There will be no consequences for the corporation, besides a token fine, aka “the cost of doing business”.”
I’d hope for more along the lines of accessory to kidnapping with special circumstances (children, money)
“Don’t tell me there’s no idea this is going on by other judges and lawyers.”
They know, all right. Yup. And they rig the elections as well:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8514
Promise outcomes in cases involving defendants in their courts, in exchange for vote-tampering… just all kinds of stuff. They all know in these places, because so many are ‘in on it.’ Snakes in the grass.
I hope as well.
But that and a bag of chips … well all I get is a bag of chips.
Hope is good. But there’s also reality.
Nothing will happen to the corporations.
1000s of children had their lives destroyed. Blatant bribery, or is it just “lobbying”?
And 28 years? That’s fucking it? So anyone can go and destroy the lives of 1000s of children, and they get … 28 years? WTF?!?!?!?
And what happened to the children in these places? Assault? Rape? Gang-rape? They’re fucking 12 year olds!!!
1000s of children! What the fuck, are they part of ChurchCo?
And no one knew anything was going on for years!? None of the lawyers at the cases said anything? None of the other judges knew? No one in that legal system knew? F me.
If they can do it to children, 1000s of them, they can do it to any child.
And ya, I do hope. I hope they get the worst possible thing possible to happen to them. I mean the worst possible things, imagined and unimagined.
Chilling statement, but true.
How loathsome! At least the one seemed contrite. I expected them both to double down and say they did nothing wrong.
Wells Fargo spent some of the bailout money on investing private prisons. Wonder how long it will take to get all those people with rotten credit into those concrete walls. Glenzilla