[R-G] Goodman: Jailing Kids for Cash

[Sid Shniad]

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

Truthdig: February 17, 2009 

Jailing Kids for Cash 

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.