[Peace-discuss] Jailing Kids for Cash

[E. Wayne Johnson]

            http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090217_kids_for_cash/


        Posted on Feb 17, 2009

By Amy Goodman

  As many as 5,000 children in Pennsylvania have been found guilty, and 
up to 2,000 of them jailed, by two corrupt judges who received kickbacks 
from the builders and owners of private prison facilities that 
benefited. The two judges pleaded guilty in a stunning case of greed and 
corruption that is still unfolding. Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and 
Michael T. Conahan received $2.6 million in kickbacks while imprisoning 
children who often had no access to a lawyer. The case offers an 
extraordinary glimpse into the shameful private prison industry that is 
flourishing in the United States.

  Take the story of Jamie Quinn. When she was 14 years old, she was 
imprisoned for almost a year. Jamie, now 18, described the incident that 
led to her incarceration:

  "I got into an argument with one of my friends. And all that happened 
was just a basic fight. She slapped me in the face, and I did the same 
thing back. There [were] no marks, no witnesses, nothing. It was just 
her word against my word."

  Jamie was placed in one of the two controversial facilities, PA Child 
Care, then bounced around to several other locations. The 11-month 
imprisonment had a devastating impact on her. She told me: "People 
looked at me different when I came out, thought I was a bad person, 
because I was gone for so long. My family started splitting up ... 
because I was away and got locked up. I'm still struggling in school, 
because the schooling system in facilities like these places [are] just 
horrible."

  She began cutting herself, blaming medication that she was forced to 
take: "I was never depressed, I was never put on meds before. I went 
there, and they just started putting meds on me, and I didn't even know 
what they were. They said if I didn't take them, I wasn't following my 
program." She was hospitalized three times.

  Jamie Quinn is just one of thousands that these two corrupt judges 
locked up. The Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center got involved when 
Hillary Transue was sent away for three months for posting a Web site 
parodying the assistant principal at her school. Hillary clearly marked 
the Web page as a joke. The assistant principal didn't find it funny, 
apparently, and Hillary faced the notoriously harsh Judge Ciavarella.

  As Bob Schwartz of the Juvenile Law Center told me: "Hillary had, 
unknown to her, signed a paper, her mother had signed a paper, giving up 
her right to a lawyer. That made the 90-second hearing that she had in 
front of Judge Ciavarella pretty much of a kangaroo court." The JLC 
found that in half of the juvenile cases in Luzerne County, defendants 
had waived their right to an attorney. Judge Ciavarella repeatedly 
ignored recommendations for leniency from both prosecutors and probation 
officers. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard the JLC's case, then the 
FBI began an investigation, which resulted in the two judges entering 
guilty-plea agreements last week for tax evasion and wire fraud.

  They are expected to serve seven years in federal prison. Two separate 
class-action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of the imprisoned children.

  This scandal involves just one county in the U.S., and one relatively 
small private prison company. According to The Sentencing Project, "the 
United States is the world's leader in incarceration with 2.1 million 
people currently in the nation's prisons or jails---a 500 percent 
increase over the past thirty years." The Wall Street Journal reports 
that "[p]rison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the 
economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state 
government officials to build and operate their own jails." For-profit 
prison companies like the Corrections Corporation of America and GEO 
Group (formerly Wackenhut) are positioned for increased profits. It is 
still not clear what impact the just-signed stimulus bill will have on 
the private prison industry (for example, the bill contains $800 million 
for prison construction, yet billions for school construction were cut out).

  Congress is considering legislation to improve juvenile justice 
policy, legislation the American Civil Liberties Union says is "built on 
the clear evidence that community-based programs can be far more 
successful at preventing youth crime than the discredited policies of 
excessive incarceration."

  Our children need education and opportunity, not incarceration. Let 
the kids of Luzerne County imprisoned for profit by corrupt judges teach 
us a lesson. As young Jamie Quinn said of her 11-month imprisonment, "It 
just makes me really question other authority figures and people that 
we're supposed to look up to and trust."
 
  /Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
 
  Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international 
TV/radio news hour airing on more than 700 stations in North America. 
She was awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the "Alternative 
Nobel" prize, and received the award in the Swedish Parliament in December./

  © 2009 Amy Goodman

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