The penitentiary-industrial complex
Running prisons for profit is a bad idea for many reasons, not the least of which is the conflict of interest that arises when a corporation financially benefits from high imprisonment rates. Imagine, for example, what the lobbying for this looks like: vast sums of money provided to politicians to encourage incarceration, punitive laws, mandatory minimums, all while having a financial incentive to encourage recidivism.
Oh, but it can't be that bad, right? Certainly nobody would be so stupid and cruel as to profit from falsely imprisoning people.
The answer is: not just people, but false imprisonment of children on a massive scale:The young people had been sent to privately run detention centers from 2003 to 2008 as part of a judicial kickback scheme that shocked Pennsylvania and the nation. The judge in the cases, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. of Luzerne County, is one of two who pleaded guilty last month to wire fraud and conspiracy for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks.
The exact number of records to be expunged was not stated in the court’s order; a special master is investigating the cases.
Judge Ciavarella and the other judge, Michael T. Conahan, admitted that they had agreed to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers that paid them for the business. Under their agreements, the judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and will resign from the bench and from the bar.
The judges worked in tandem, beginning in 2002, with Judge Conahan controlling the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts. They shut down a detention center run by the county and began sending the youngsters to newly built detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
Oh, but it can't be that bad, right? Certainly nobody would be so stupid and cruel as to profit from falsely imprisoning people.
The answer is: not just people, but false imprisonment of children on a massive scale:The young people had been sent to privately run detention centers from 2003 to 2008 as part of a judicial kickback scheme that shocked Pennsylvania and the nation. The judge in the cases, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. of Luzerne County, is one of two who pleaded guilty last month to wire fraud and conspiracy for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks.
The exact number of records to be expunged was not stated in the court’s order; a special master is investigating the cases.
Judge Ciavarella and the other judge, Michael T. Conahan, admitted that they had agreed to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers that paid them for the business. Under their agreements, the judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and will resign from the bench and from the bar.
The judges worked in tandem, beginning in 2002, with Judge Conahan controlling the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts. They shut down a detention center run by the county and began sending the youngsters to newly built detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.