Judges take bribes to send youth to private prisons
This is insane, and shows the fundamental flaw in the concept of private, profit driven prisons.
Here's a link to the full article: http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE51B7B320090212
U.S. judges admit to jailing children for money
By Jon Hurdle
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention center in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.
Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, entered plea agreements in federal court in Scranton admitting that they took payoffs from PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare, between 2003 and 2006.
"Your statement that I have disgraced my judgeship is true," Ciavarella wrote in a letter to the court. "My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame."
Conahan, who along with Ciavarella faces up to seven years in prison, did not make any comment on the case.
When someone is sent to a detention center, the company running the facility receives money from the county government to defray the cost of incarceration. So as more children were sentenced to the detention center, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from the government, prosecutors said.
Teenagers who came before Ciavarella in juvenile court often were sentenced to detention centers for minor offenses that would typically have been classified as misdemeanors, according to the Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit group.
One 17-year-old boy was sentenced to three months' detention for being in the company of another minor caught shoplifting.
Others were given similar sentences for "simple assault" resulting from a schoolyard scuffle that would normally draw a warning, a spokeswoman for the Juvenile Law Center said.
The Constitution guarantees the right to legal representation in U.S. courts. But many of the juveniles appeared before Ciavarella without an attorney because they were told by the probation service that their minor offenses didn't require one.
Marsha Levick, chief counsel for the Juvenile Law Center, estimated that of approximately 5,000 juveniles who came before Ciavarella from 2003 and 2006, between 1,000 and 2,000 received excessively harsh detention sentences. She said the center will sue the judges, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare for financial compensation for their victims.
"That judges would allow their greed to trump the rights of defendants is just obscene," Levick said.
The judges attempted to hide their income from the scheme by creating false records and routing payments through intermediaries, prosecutors said.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court removed Ciavarella and Conahan from their duties after federal prosecutors filed charges on January 26. The court has also appointed a judge to review all the cases involved.
Here's a link to the full article: http://uk.reuters.com/article/burningIssues/idUKTRE51B7B320090212
U.S. judges admit to jailing children for money
By Jon Hurdle
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention center in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences.
Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan of the Court of Common Pleas in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, entered plea agreements in federal court in Scranton admitting that they took payoffs from PA Childcare and a sister company, Western PA Childcare, between 2003 and 2006.
"Your statement that I have disgraced my judgeship is true," Ciavarella wrote in a letter to the court. "My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame."
Conahan, who along with Ciavarella faces up to seven years in prison, did not make any comment on the case.
When someone is sent to a detention center, the company running the facility receives money from the county government to defray the cost of incarceration. So as more children were sentenced to the detention center, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from the government, prosecutors said.
Teenagers who came before Ciavarella in juvenile court often were sentenced to detention centers for minor offenses that would typically have been classified as misdemeanors, according to the Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia nonprofit group.
One 17-year-old boy was sentenced to three months' detention for being in the company of another minor caught shoplifting.
Others were given similar sentences for "simple assault" resulting from a schoolyard scuffle that would normally draw a warning, a spokeswoman for the Juvenile Law Center said.
The Constitution guarantees the right to legal representation in U.S. courts. But many of the juveniles appeared before Ciavarella without an attorney because they were told by the probation service that their minor offenses didn't require one.
Marsha Levick, chief counsel for the Juvenile Law Center, estimated that of approximately 5,000 juveniles who came before Ciavarella from 2003 and 2006, between 1,000 and 2,000 received excessively harsh detention sentences. She said the center will sue the judges, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare for financial compensation for their victims.
"That judges would allow their greed to trump the rights of defendants is just obscene," Levick said.
The judges attempted to hide their income from the scheme by creating false records and routing payments through intermediaries, prosecutors said.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court removed Ciavarella and Conahan from their duties after federal prosecutors filed charges on January 26. The court has also appointed a judge to review all the cases involved.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ilene Fortune on -
This is sickening- literally. The physical reaction I am having to this is almost intense as the emotional one. Grateful for the info.
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Permalink Reply by Gina Belafonte on
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Wow. Once again, greed looses, but sadly to late for the young men and women caught in the miss-management and moral decay of the justice system. How did the judges get caught I wonder? Glad they did. I hope that someone will go over all the cases involved in this corrupt situation and clear the records of the miss-sentenced youth. Those judges should have to write written apologies to the victims and their families.
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Permalink Reply by Gathering For Justice on -
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?_r=1&emc=eta1
At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.
David Kidwell/Associated Press
Prosecutors say Judges Michael T. Conahan, and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., above, took kickbacks to send teenagers to detention centers.
Instead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.
She was handcuffed and taken away as her stunned parents stood by.
“I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare,” said Hillary, 17, who was sentenced in 2007. “All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”
The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003. Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.
The case has shocked Luzerne County, an area in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been battered by a loss of industrial jobs and the closing of most of its anthracite coal mines.
And it raised concerns about whether juveniles should be required to have counsel either before or during their appearances in court and whether juvenile courts should be open to the public or child advocates.
If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar. They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months. Lawyers for both men declined to comment.
Since state law forbids retirement benefits to judges convicted of a felony while in office, the judges would also lose their pensions.
With Judge Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said.
They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, the authorities said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers.
Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.
Though he pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday, Judge Ciavarella has denied sentencing juveniles who did not deserve it or sending them to the detention centers in a quid pro quo with the centers.
But Assistant United States Attorney Gordon A. Zubrod said after the hearing that the government continues to charge a quid pro quo.
“We’re not negotiating that, no,” Mr. Zubrod said. “We’re not backing off.”
No charges have been filed against executives of the detention centers. Prosecutors said the investigation into the case was continuing.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Judge Ciavarella was unusually harsh. He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10. He also routinely ignored requests for leniency made by prosecutors and probation officers.
“The juvenile system, by design, is intended to be a less punitive system than the adult system, and yet here were scores of children with very minor infractions having their lives ruined,” said Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center.
“There was a culture of intimidation surrounding this judge and no one was willing to speak up about the sentences he was handing down.”
Next: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html?pagewanted=2&...
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Permalink Reply by Nadirah X on -
Amazing what individuals in power get away with. Things always come full circle, now they must pay the price for their greed. They showed total disregard for human beings. Sad.
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Permalink Reply by cj on -
Why doesn't this surprise me? Its sad but its been my reality since I was born, that is why I wake up every morning giving my all to the beautiful struggle..
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Permalink Reply by Gladys on -
So bad to hear and to think it has been going on for such a long time. The young people needs alot of councellings to ease the bitterness they may be having. God have mercy!
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Permalink Reply by MillyTent on -
It is high time to speak out against this travesty this is a fight to the death!!!! GENOCIDE is the key word here, let's stop playing games and protect our rights and kids rights.
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Permalink Reply by Pamela on -
It saddens me that the young people that were impacted by the sentencing may spend years trying to get their lives back on track and that some of them never will. It angers me that the individuals that we as a people elected/appointed and trusted to deal fairly will likely still live out the rest of their lives in comfort. It disgusts me that we have a system that allows it!
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Permalink Reply by HA2TIM GYE-NYAME on -
It makes me wonder how many other places this is going on.
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Permalink Reply by carol saffen on -
I read this also! It is sadly not surprising. The rationale and mind set of some people is beyond comprehension. Trading a life for money is what it boils down to. They were caught--how many are not caught?
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Permalink Reply by Wisdom Supreme a.k.a. Souljourner Truth on -
Another sad story of how broken our Judicial System has become. We are the people and the people shall not be moved the time is now and the urgency is upon us to stand strong in the face of tierny, lies, and propraganda and dispell the rhetoric. We must demand the justice and equality that the Founding Fathers Promised no I stand corrected. We must hold those we elect accountable and show no fear when doing so and also we the people must TAKE THE JUSTICE AND EQUALITY AT A PRICE "FREEDOM AIN'T FREE"
I'm SOULJOURNER TRUTH and I approve this message!!!!!!
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The Gathering’s Mission
The mission of The Gathering is to build an Intergenerational, movement, rooted in history, cultures and non-violent direct action to heal communities, build collective strength and generate an environment of hope and opportunity.
Civil rights and social justice organizations have come to understand that collective action on a national basis is required to stop child incarceration and challenge the immoral process which perpetuates an unjust justice system. These groups are working under extremely difficult circumstances and many of them with little or no resources. The Gathering is a national movement that creates a coordinated space to 1) fortify relationships between regional groups, 2) support local endeavors and 3) enhance the ongoing organizing of non-violent direct action training. Central to its mission is strengthening our moral environment.
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"The Gathering" is a project of Tides Center 501c3
Civil rights and social justice organizations have come to understand that collective action on a national basis is required to stop child incarceration and challenge the immoral process which perpetuates an unjust justice system. These groups are working under extremely difficult circumstances and many of them with little or no resources. The Gathering is a national movement that creates a coordinated space to 1) fortify relationships between regional groups, 2) support local endeavors and 3) enhance the ongoing organizing of non-violent direct action training. Central to its mission is strengthening our moral environment.
- “a project of tides center” -
"The Gathering" is a project of Tides Center 501c3
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