In 2008, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was rocked by a scandal: two Juvenile Court judges were taking payoffs in exchange for sending teens to a for-profit correctional facility, sometimes for absurdly minor offenses. William Ecenbarger's book Kids for Cash dissects what happened, and the reality that it could easily happen again.
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Over a period of 5 years, Judge Mark Ciavarella and President Judge Michael Conahan took over two million dollars in exchange for keeping the headcount up at the incarceration facility ironically named PA Child Care. Ciavarella was the one handing down the sentences to kids in a kangaroo court - but he couldn't have done it without the complicity of Conahan, who was supposed to oversee the other judges. When the judge for Dependency Court (child protective cases) complained that Ciavarella's taste for incarceration was draining the budget and leaving no resources for parents and kids in CPS cases, the complainer was suddenly demoted to a position in another department.
The most amazing thing about the scheme was how brazen it was. Ciavarella told a roomful of probation officers that he wanted PA Child Care kept full. Prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, and assorted courtroom staff were in his courtroom every day, watching hearings that often lasted less than two minutes, after which the kids were shackled and taken away while their parents watched in disbelief. Kids were routinely advised to sign waivers giving up their right to an attorney, and were never asked on the record if they understood what that meant. PA Child Care got calls in the morning to tell them how many new arrivals to expect - before the hearings had even started. And the kids at PA Child Care received evaluations (at parents' expense, routinely recommending incarceration) from a psychiatrist who was Judge Conahan's brother-in-law.
The whole idea behind Juvenile Court is that adolescents are less culpable than adults, and the focus is supposed to be on rehabilitation rather than punishment. Incarceration is normally reserved for violent crimes or other serious offenses. Taking kids who've committed minor infractions, and locking them up with violent offenders, is a recipe for disaster.
Yet the people in Judge Ciavarella's courtroom stood by as he handed down sentences. Eight months to a sixteen-year-old for driving without a license. Three months to a sixteen-year-old for loitering. Two months to a thirteen-year-old who threw a piece of steak during a family argument. Eight months to a sixteen-year-old for giving a cop the finger. Two months to an eleven-year-old for failing to pay a $488 fine. And, most notoriously, a month to fourteen-year-old Hillary Transue for making fun of her school's assistant principal on her MySpace page.
The consequences of Ciavarella's lock-em-up policies snowballed into disaster for some of the youth. A fifteen-year-old boy was arrested along with his parents for buying a bike that turned out to be stolen. The adult court dropped charges against his parents, because there was no proof that any of them had known it was stolen property. But Ciavarella sentenced the boy to "boot camp" for nine months, and then probation. After his release, the boy began doing drugs and missing appointments with his probation officer, with the result that he was in and out of juvenile facilities for three years, a pattern that continued into adulthood.
Even after a newspaper expose, very few voices were raised in protest. Locking up juveniles was costing Luzerne County $16 million a year (it dropped to $4 million after he left). But the schools loved Ciavarella because he got rid of the "problem kids" who talked back to the teacher, disrupted class, or got into shoving matches. The DA's were racking up wins. The public defenders were keeping caseloads down. And there are a disturbing number of examples of cops or probation officers advising parents to file charges over common adolescent misbehaviors, assuring the parents that the result would be a fine or probation at most.
It was only after the kickbacks were discovered that Ciavarella and Conahan were removed and prosecuted. Both initially offered to take a plea deal to tax fraud and other crimes, which would have resulted in seven-year sentences. But because neither would admit to the kids-for-cash aspect, the judge hearing their case refused to accept the deal, and the case went to trial. Both were found guilty. Judge Conahan made an emotional apology at his sentencing hearing, and was sentenced to 17 and a half years. As for Ciavarella, he denied any wrongdoing, and was sentenced to 28 years. Hillary Transue, the girl locked up over her MySpace page, was heard cheerfully calling out, "Bye-bye!"
The harm done by two greedy judges is long-lasting. Some of the teens were drawn into a downward spiral of escalating behaviors, resulting in more time in the system, substance abuse, or suicide attempts. Others got past it, but still panic at the sight of police. Less obvious victims were the parents and kids in dependency cases, who couldn't get the resources they needed because the budget was being funneled into PA Child Care. And then there were the victims of actual, serious crimes committed by juveniles. The number of teens charged with assault, armed robbery, or other major crimes was relatively small. But when Ciavarella's corruption was revealed, the higher court purged the records of all the juveniles he'd sentenced, since there was no way of knowing which ones were actually guilty. This was unavoidable, but grossly unfair to actual crime victims.
Ecenbarger's book talks about how notions of "zero tolerance" and "getting tough on crime" fed into this travesty. But there are a couple of factors that he glossed over. One is the role of race. America's soaring rate of incarceration is tolerated in part because those in the majority can tell themselves that it only happens to "those other people." Luzerne County is 90% white, and I'd be interested know what role race played in which kids got locked up, and which parents were heard when they tried to sound the alarm.
The other issue is the inherent danger of having a for-profit correctional system. When the facility is run by the government, there's a built-in incentive to keep incarceration rates down and invest in rehabilitation (substance abuse treatment, GED programs, transportation help for family visits, etc). With for-profit facilities, there's a built-in incentive to keep incarceration rates up - in fact, facilities can demand a contract with a guaranteed minimum headcount! Until this changes, we can expect to see more Ciavarellas and Conahans.
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