What is former President Judge Mark Ciavarella of Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania accused of doing?
As a juvenile court judge, Ciavarella received $2.6 million in kickbacks (he calls the money finders fees) from Robert Powell and Robert Mericle, owners of two private, for-profit juvenile detention facilities in Wilkes-Barre, PA.
For the cash (he already copped a guilty plea that was later withdrawn), he rendered harsh sentences to juveniles as young as ten years old (often lacking legal representation) sending them to juvenile detention centers owned by Powell and Mericle (this ten year old with no previous record was lead out of court in handcuffs and shackles).
This truly unbelievable story reflects the fundamental flaw of corporate - for profit - run prisons, detention centers or jails. The convergence of windfall profits, poverty, poor education, insufficient legal representation, corruption, greed and scarce oversight all lead to predictable disasters - like the above mentioned travesty of justice.
Corporate jails need warm bodies; thus they do not want rehabilitation - they need dysfunctional communities to continue feeding their bottom line. Promoting peaceful and law abiding communities is against their best interests.
Detention centers are a necessary instution in our society. They protect law abiding citizens from criminals. But a correctional institution should be run by those that have a vested interest in crime reduction and not the opposite.
America already has, by far, the largest prison population in the world. To think we would begin the criminalization process with children as young as ten years old is sick. Hopefully, this former judge gets the book thrown at him.
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