"Pennsylvania is one of just a handful of states that do not provide any money to counties to defend those who can't afford a lawyer."[1]<p>Perhaps the DA and Public Defenders office should have equal budgets.<p>I am hoping some very smart lawyer figures out how to sue the prison company for these children. I am sure their is a corporate veil, but it can be pierced in the cases of criminal activity. Public-private partnerships work in a lot of cases, but this one needs a serious hammer to show that pulling this crap is bad and will put some scheming folks in jail.<p>1) <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/03/03/147876810/after-scandal-new-rules-for-juveniles-in-pa-courts" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/2012/03/03/147876810/after-scandal-new-ru...</a>
I've been following this case for a while .. extremely disturbing situation and the sentences were far too light for many of the offending parties, such as the builder of the facility who bribed the judges. Just imagine how it must have felt to be one of the kids. It's sick, really.<p>It seems that if you hide behind corporate structures and contracts you can transform the nature of charges against your actions. In this case, the offenses committed involved <i>enslaving children for personal financial gain</i>. If there is any offense worse than that, please inform.
What really troubles me is what they'll do to help those 4000 children. I think they might lack the maturity to deal with their experience. Hell, if someone sent me to jail over something like that when I was in my teens, I would certainly have taken the wrong turn at that point.
The big news: <i>Once Ciavarella was convicted, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed out 4,000 convictions issued by the judge.</i> Will the kids or their families get any restitution for wrongful imprisonment?
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal</a><p>This whole problem stems from the movement to privatize prisons. It's a disgusting abuse of power. The lives of many at-risk children (and their families) have been turned upside-down due to greed.
It's sad that in my country, where prisons are currently run by the government, there exist plans for privatization. With privatization there's almost no benefits, and a lot of opportunities for trouble; it the Dutch government feels the urge to repeat the mistakes of others.
I feel like I fell for link bait - awful title.<p>That said, this is hardly a fair sentence. He should have to serve time equal to all those lives he destroyed. How about surrendering the money and life in prison?
They forgot the best part:
1) Statistical analysis of the children's ethnicity and religion. Where is it?
2) What about the personnel working in the prisons? Where they all completely unaware of that situation?
3) Private prisons are State-financed. Translation: money was taken from the pockets of US citizens to make sure these children would not have any chance of a bright future.<p>Meanwhile, in the USA...
Wow! I remember these guys from Micheal Moore's movie "Capitalism a Love Story".There is part about private jails for teenagers. It says that 6500 kids were unjustly convicted. Some kids were locked up even when probation officers objected to detention.
You can watch that part here: <a href="http://vimeo.com/39118828" rel="nofollow">http://vimeo.com/39118828</a> 00:30:30
the title referenced "black children" specifically, but the article didn't mention it at all, is it supposed to be assumed all/majority of the kids sent to jail were black?
Can we also send all prosecutors who only care about maintaing a 100% conviction rate to jail? Their actions are the exact same as far as I'm concerned.
Usually when "restitution" it always seems to be significantly more than the amount actually taken. In this case, not, and I wonder why:<p>"...received more than $2.6 million from privately run youth centers owned by PA Child Care. In 2011, Ciavarella was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 28 years in prison. He was also forced to pay $1 million in restitution..."
I hope this asshole dies in jail, and I fear he's not the last crooked judge they'll catch doing this shit.<p>Private prisons are a disgrace to the justice system.
I've not seen on a single story related to this about the actual bribers: they just name the company, but don't press criminal charges against individuals, or even sue the company? How is that an appropriate response?
When I first heard about this, I was thinking that it happened in a third world country. After reading that it occured in Pennsylvania....I'm just amazed, disgusted, and furious. Hopefully Harrisburg does a long cleanup of that section of the state's court system, that civil suit crushes those responsible for this, and the bastards that profited from such a bastardization of justice serve the entire sentence out in a Hell on earth.
Those who prey on children tend to have a real bad time in prison when the prison population finds out.<p>Considering the number of people sentenced, good luck keeping their identities a secret. Neither of the judges is going to enjoy their stay.
As I've read about this story for the past couple years not once have the bribers been mentioned. How much time will they be serving? Are these really people that should be trusted with the incarceration of minors?
Contra the OP, the problem isn't for-profit prisons <i>per se</i>; the problem is for-profit prisons in a political system highly susceptible to rent-seeking by special interest groups.