"Cash for Kids": Firms Behind Juvenile Prison Bribes Reach $2.5 Million Settlement in Civil Suit

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/outrage-cash-kids-firms-behind-juvenile-prison-bribes-reach-25-million-settlement

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NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the latest news on the so-called "kids for cash" scandal in Pennsylvania, in which judges took money in exchange for sending thousands of juvenile offenders to for-profit youth jails. In 2011, former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella was convicted of accepting bribes for putting juveniles into detention centers operated by the companies PA Child Care and a sister company, Western Pennsylvania Child Care. Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, are said to have received $2.6 million for their efforts.

Some of the young people sentenced under their watch were jailed over the objections of their probation officers. In 2009, Democracy Now! spoke with one of the young people who spent almost a year in one of the juvenile detention centers after being sentenced by Judge Ciavarella as a first-time offender. This is Jamie Quinn.

JAMIE QUINN: I was about 14 years old, and 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 was no marks, no witnesses, nothing. It was just her word against my word. My only charges were simple assault and harassment. And I didn’t even know that charges were pressed against me until I had to go down to the intake and probation and fill out a whole bunch of paperwork.

AMY GOODMAN: I asked Jamie Quinn in 2009 about the action Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella took in her case after taking bribes to do so. This was her response.

JAMIE QUINN: It just makes me really question other authority figures and people that we’re supposed to look up to and trust. I mean, Ciavarella has been a judge for a long time, from what I know, and a well-respected one, is what I thought. And obviously not. It just really makes me question and not trust other people. I mean, if someone like Judge Ciavarella could do this, then it makes me believe that anyone can betray the law and—I don’t know.