http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22034.htm

Jailing Kids for Cash

By Amy Goodman

February 18, 2009 "TruthDig" -- 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."
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news
hour airing on 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.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
© 2009 Amy Goodman



_______________________________________________
Theharderstuff mailing list
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
http://mail.psychedelic-library.org/mailman/listinfo/theharderstuff