(Emphasis mine to highlight the parts that shock me the most.)
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.
The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.
Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward.
The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles’ records expunged.
Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it.
Many Pennsylvania counties contract with privately run juvenile detention centers, paying them either a fixed overall fee or a certain amount per youth, per day.
In Luzerne County, prosecutors say, Conahan shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped the two companies secure rich contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, at least some of that dependent on how many juveniles were locked up.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was ridiculously harsh and ran roughshod over youngsters’ constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.
This case is just a microcosm of the entire “prisons for profit” industry that incentivizes the arrest and incarceration of citizens. These prison companies, the prison guards unions, the companies that build these prisons and supply them with food, clothing, and other services, none of them want to see any change in law that results in less imprisonment and they pay lots of money and hire very good lobbyists to see that doesn’t happen.
Remember that as you peruse the various responses from Politicians on Pot. When it comes to the attention of our elected officials, it’s our voices and the truth against prison-industrial campaign contributions, pharmaceutical lobbyists, tobacco interests, alcohol representatives, and entrenched law enforcement bureaucracies dependent on the drug war to either provide their jobs or eliminate their competition.
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Good thing there are people like us to stand up against these corrupt money hungry prison lovers. People should know that their real intentions are to keep money in their pockets, not drugs off the streets.
my son got in trouble at 14, a second violation for ‘suspicion’ of under the influence of MJ at school, had him under intense probation, long story short his failure to comply with clean UA’s had him removed from my home and placed in a group home, it was hard on all of us, I had MANY long conversations with his probation officer and let it be known of my advocacy, not for teen-agers, for responsible adults medical/rec. It was BS but in his situation High School was a place police bust you for pot. He has just turned 18, has his GED and going to IT school.