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Lock 'em Up: Jailing Kids is a Proud American Tradition
At first glance, the news from Luzerne County, in northeastern Pennsylvania, is not good. In what is known locally as the "kids for cash" scandal, two judges have pleaded guilty to accepting $2.6 million in kickbacks from a for-profit juvenile correctional facility -- a privately owned jail for kids, essentially.
And here is what the judges delivered, according to the charges of the U.S. Attorney overseeing the case: In 2003 one of them, Judge Michael Conahan, who had authority over such expenses, defunded the county-owned detention center, channeling kids sentenced to detention to the private jail -- along with the public's money.
For good measure, the feds charge, Mr. Conahan also agreed to send the private facility $1.3 million per year in public funds. Over the succeeding years, the private jail, along with a second lockup-for-profit that had opened in another part of the state, won tens of millions of dollars in Luzerne County contracts, allegedly with the two judges' help.
What has drawn the media's attention, though, is the remarkable strictness of the judges' judging. Mr. Conahan's alleged partner in the scheme, Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr., reportedly sent kids to the private detention centers when probation officers didn't think it was a good idea; he sent kids there when their crimes were nonviolent; he sent kids there when their crimes were insignificant. It was as though he was determined to keep those private prisons filled with children at all times. According to news stories, offenses as small as swiping a jar of nutmeg or throwing a piece of steak at an adult were enough to merit a trip to the hoosegow.
Over the years Mr. Ciavarella racked up a truly awesome score: He sent kids to detention instead of other options at twice the state average, according to the New York Times. He tried a prodigious number of cases in which the accused child had no lawyer -- here, says the Times, the judge's numbers were fully 10 times the state average. And he did it fast, sometimes rendering a verdict "in the neighborhood of a minute-and-a-half to three minutes," according to the judge tasked with reconsidering Mr. Ciavarella's work.
My question is, what have the Luzerne County judges done that deviates in the least from our American political traditions? These jurists have merely taken to heart the unvarying message of 40 years' worth of election results -- that more people, many more, need to go to jail -- and have come up with an entrepreneurial solution to the problem.
We the people say it loud and clear every Election Day, in high-crime periods as well as peaceful stretches: More of our population needs to be behind bars. We love retribution so much we make hits of TV shows in which society's ne'er-do-wells come in for lectures not only by stern, righteous judges, but by tattooed, mulletted bounty hunters as well.
And over the years we have embraced all sorts of instruments ensuring that more people got locked up for longer and longer stretches: Three strikes laws, mandatory sentencing laws, zero-tolerance policies. Maybe they aren't "fair," but they've helped to make the U.S. number one in percentage of population in the clink -- in fact, as Virginia Democratic Sen. Jim Webb pointed out in Parade magazine on Sunday, America has an amazing 25% of the world's prisoners.
Taking this path has not always been easy. In the 1990s, when we started to realize that child crooks were "superpredators" who needed to go to prison along with everyone else, some were unwilling to act. Others stepped up. "We've got to quit coddling these violent kids like nothing is going on," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) in 1996. "Getting some of these do-gooder liberals to do what is right is real tough. We'd all like to rehabilitate these kids, but by gosh we are in a different age."
But taking law and order to the next level in this different age required money, by gosh. Privatizing bits of the prison industry was a step in the right direction, but what we didn't have -- until recently -- were proper instruments for incentivizing the judiciary. That's what the "kids for cash" judges were apparently experimenting with.
Today the do-gooders revile those efforts as "kickbacks," but before long we will see them as legitimate tools of justice. Our laws governing lobbying and campaign contributions have struck the right balance between the wishes of the people and those of private industry, so why are we so quick to doubt that the same great results can be achieved by putting the government's justice-dealing branch on the same market-based course?
The public will get to see their neighbors' kids go to jail, the judge who sends them there will be able to afford a nice condo in Florida, and the company that satisfies the public's desire for punishment will make a handsome profit. It will be a win-win result for everyone.
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37 Comments so far
Show AllI fear that this was not written tongue in cheek. Even as we learn more about the development of the human brain, we continue to treat our youth as though they came formed at birth as somehow incorrigible and that their parents and the society around them have nothing to do with their actions. The older I get the more ashamed I become of the nation of my birth.
But does not the evidence show that such high rates of incarceration have a positive effect on society as a whole in the United States? Are the youth not more law abiding, the streets safer, overall crime lower then those LIBERAL nanny states in Europe ?
Spare the rod spoil the child!!
(Yes this sarcasm)
I wonder the statistics on how many of those kids sent to jail were Black & Latino vs. White. I am sure we would not like the percentages. It seems that quite often when these kinds of things unravel and we find out that minorities are sent to prison more frequently and punished more severely it just gets put off as Blacks and Latinos making up excuses for why they fail at life.
I have read many statistics over the years supporting what you say. Poor white kids are not too much better off. The punishments of these groups are longer, less rehabilitative and given for lesser offenses.
Middle and upper class kids generally get counseling, released to their parents, community service or some kind of boot camp, if their parents are tough. If they shoplift, the police are not called, but the kids are banned from the store and their photos are posted.
Overly harsh punishment and letting kids off so they can laugh at their crimes are both wrong. Prevention in the form of wholesome activities is the first line of defense (boy do I sound like an old f--t). Restitution and working off the damage is a more postitive remedy than incarceration for most property crimes.
But here is the best remedy of all: EXAMPLE. Adults who violate laws should be made to pay in proportion to the severity of their crimes, not their race or class. You know who I am talking about.
Joe
"These jurists have merely taken to heart the unvarying message of 40 years' worth of election results -- that more people, many more, need to go to jail -- and have come up with an entrepreneurial solution to the problem."
At one level, this story is about a society conditioned (or incentivized) over 40 or 50 years to act on self-interest and the interests of wealth and power. And the motivation at the heart of that kind of society... well, as usual, just follow the money.
"Today the do-gooders revile those efforts as "kickbacks," but before long we will see them as legitimate tools of justice."
Great quote. "Do-gooders" will be seen as not being "realistic."
"We the people say it loud and clear every Election Day, in high-crime periods as well as peaceful stretches: More of our population needs to be behind bars. We love retribution so much we make hits of TV shows in which society's ne'er-do-wells come in for lectures not only by stern, righteous judges, but by tattooed, mulletted bounty hunters as well."
One of the biggest problems we have 'round here in 'Merica is this notion that whatever happens is condoned by the populace...this mis-notion closely aligns with another: that our votes count as we intend them...frequently, legislation is passed in direct contradiction to the will of the populace, and votes are miscounted, or not counted, or recast after the fact...why one would argue that America reflects the will of the populace, or that the populace gets what it wants, is beyond me...one of the real issues we face is how to regain control of our world against a determined, weaponized and controlling faction...
the only real question is whether economic or ecologic collapse will arrive soon enough and be devastating enough to physically, psychologically or financially derail the horrific violence this type of fundamental, and absolutely necessary, change will otherwise almost certainly foster...how does a general populace move from being lazily, willingly victimized by a weaponed ruling class to being newly aware and harmoniously self-directed without answering those same weapons? withdraw monies from the system, plant food and hope? some sort of neighborhood alliance seems immediately appealing...what do you do when the cops, lawyers, judges and trusted representatives are the bad guys? where do you go when your financial institutions are stealing your money?
to ground, and to your neighbors...
Sioux Rose
DUBET: Thank you. Presumably since the author wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas" he has some understanding of "group think" and how many DO vote against their own best interests. However, when a population is given ghastly choices, when its vote may or may matter, when advertisers cum lobbyists define public policy, when many are saturated with false information, work too hard to do independent research in what little free time they possess... the stage is set for puppet theater on a massive scale.
Whenever a writer uses the pronoun "we" to define America and America's foreign policy I cringe. WE are not some uniform army in consensus here! The voices of dissent are NOT being heard or respected, and while polls, such as the one taken with respect to universal health care (sans the insurers) clearly demonstrate that the vast majority DOES advocate this approach, the media acts as if the public doesn't even exist, as if it voiced no opinion. Only vetted agents and experts may speak for what "America wants" or "America believes." It was the same way with the public NOT wanting the bailout to Wall St/bankers, and the vast majority wanting troops out of Iraq, an end to that war/occupation/quagmire. Makes a citizen feel like they're behind glass screaming as THE IMPORTANT ACTION takes place on the other side of the barrier.
" ... the stage is set for puppet theater on a massive scale."
Well said. Puppet theatre on a massive scale is exactly what we have. The media simply will not cover dissent (except for staged events like the dude breaking out the windows of the Bank of Scotland).
LeeAnnG
You are so right! ("Correct" right, not politically right.) I have the same reaction when people say "we elected" Bush two times. I surely did not elect him, and, in fact, Gore won the popular vote the first time. Second time around, there was so much voter fraud, it's hard to say, but my guess would be that it wasn't Bush.
I have a wide range of friends, family, and acquaintances - I play poker, so I'm exposed to many, many people from a lot of differing philosophies, and most of the people I know, including some hardcore rightwing regressives, think marijuana needs to be legalized. Most of them want single payer health coverage. Most of them want us out of Iraq. This is not the far-left fringe. The powerful elite in Washington are out of touch with regular people.
Polls are only as accurate as the questions are pertinent. If a pollster asks a person, "Do you think the government should be in charge of our health care?", of course most people will say, "No." But ask them, "Would you like to be able to go to a hospital and not ever have to worry about the cost?", and the answer is quite different. Questions can be phrased to elicit very specific answers, and the ones concerning incarceration and punishment are no different.
When TV shows like Law and Order have episodes in which teens as young as 14 or 15 are charged as adults - and the prosecutors advocate this abhorration - people can get the idea that it's fine to put a child in prison with hardened criminals. It makes one wonder about the Big Business interests of the media when the incarceration of children is promoted in fiction. But "we" don't necessarily agree with this, and many of "us" think it's horrific.
America is a huge, diverse country, and its citizens cannot be lumped together as a single entity. "We" didn't elect Bush, "we" didn't create the economic mess, "we" didn't invade Iraq or lie about WMD, "we" didn't ask to be the only industrialized nation without universal health coverage, "we" didn't want our jobs to be sent overseas, "we" didn't ask to have our medical marijuana gardens raided or have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.
The average American is far, far, far more liberal, thoughtful, and diverse than our "elected representatives" in Washington. It is they who need to wake up and learn to live in the new century.
Thoughtful post that correctly complicates what "we" think. If we stereotype and write people off, we lose out on opportunities to organize and change things. I agree that many people are far more to the left than our representatives, who are for the most part comfortable and privileged.
Joe
BEHIND GLASS SCREAMING. I will remember the phrase and it will become one of my cliches.
Thats how it was in early 2003. Behind glass screaming. Thats how it felt. "Hey thats a load of lies. That is not true." But people would just watch the box and make their decisions based on what the box said. Doesnt all truth come from the box?.
The only thing that made me feel better was to join the protests. Everyone got together in their tens and thousands and screamed. It felt better, but people watching the box were told that we were just ignorant deluded destructive fools. And they made their decisions based on what the box told them.
If you refuse to sing for your supper, work yourself to death then crime and punishment are your justifiable rewards.
"privatization" is always an invitation to crime.
the mighty xzorloc knows this business model very well. It's called KIDNAPPING, and it is very useful in third world countries, colombia, peru, as well as the staple for priates for centuries..
they tell me its against the law, but now it seems the law wants in on a lucrative industry.
Wow state subsidised kidnapping rings.. what will they think of next?
the mighty xzorloc wants to kidnap your children and teach them a le$$on!
You can have mine. Where do you want 'em?
Great job, Mr. Frank. I read the comments on WSJ and those hardcore rightwingers sure know how to parrot the Limbaughian talking points. They know the system is broken but are in denial mode about it.
you got it, Rush and the GOP are in charge of everything! Obama is gonna fix the prison system, right? ask him. Demand it! Or is dissent dead?
Something really weird. Rush Limbaugh is going to an event organized by Jim Wallis. Stay tuned.
Joe
So, your point is that Limbaugh and the GOP agree with the author of this article, and want the prison system fixed?
Produce more and more hard core criminals ---don't educate or rehabilitate them. Throw 'em in for a few years and they'll come out perfect criminals able to be more proficient at crime, death and destruction (more apt to recidivism) and the private prisons will be making money. So ya better get your stocks in private prisons---They'll be the way to improving our economy. Families won't have to feed kids anymore (more savings) , they're in prison, more jobs will be available as prison guards. Vacant housing projects under foreclosure can be demolished, (more jobs) new prisons can be built on the land (more jobs)---Why the rightwing crazies have it all figured out. The world economy is saved : We can export our methods like spreading democracy to other countries ( More military adviser jobs ) . We can sell promotional products for town meetings advocating these methods translated to many languages (jobs for translators here and abroad) it’s a world wide business opportunity, EeeeeeHa, American innovation strikes again.
I don't have the answer to the USA's crime issue, but in the inner cities and sometimes in rural areas, kids do kill kids. Kids do commit some violent crimes. If someone takes a life in the commission of a felony or for another criminal reason, they lose their rights to be free, that is my opinion.
Right. Because only kids who kill kids are in prison. Because only someone who takes a life is in prison.
Jveritas
What we're seeing is nothing more than another manifestation of the new American ethos -- if money, no matter how tainted, is being pocketed, all's right with the world. Note that "pocketed" is not synonymous with "earned."
We see it in the winks and nods our elected prostitutes give the excesses of the K Street hustlers in Washington -- we see it as "proper" health care across the nation is ever more determined by lecherous insurers, not medical professionals -- we see it in the singularly driven mavens of Wall St, to the accompanying detriment of Main St -- in short, we see it wherever we look.
Our solution, to date, has been to simply close our collective eyes and cross our collective fingers and hope that when we open them, a magic genie will have appeared and, in one magical swoop, set everything aright. That's not gonna happen, folks.
That's not gonna happen because we, ourselves, are complicit, and until we open our eyes and admit that our own, frenzied consumerism is the grand enabler of all, it cannot happen. More than 100 years ago, Thorstein Veblen coined the phrase, "conspicuous consumption." Over the succeeding years, that disease has "trickled down" from the nouveau riche of whom he spoke to the rest of us, and we are now afflicted with a potentially deadly consumerism -- consumption not for the intrinsic utility of a given item, but for the SOCIAL UTILITY its mere possession is thought to confer.
All the exploiters and abusers take their cues from us, the people, and like a computer virus, when they spot a weakness they strike. Profitability is, at bottom, a function of how much we're willing to reach into our pockets and fork over, and all the tangential misuses and abuses of power are, in turn, functions of that profitability. WE have the power; let's use it.
Sounds like a Third World Country report, to be honest.
No it is not. It's totally all United States American Capitalism at it's finest.
Funny, Mr. Frank didn't bother to mention that 2/3 in the prison system are Black and Brown and White people do 80% of the crime, just like they do 80% of the drugs, and constitute 80% of poverty in America. We loose those points too easily in these conversations.
Historically: 1965 White People 87% of population, Black people 12%. 650000 people in jail, prison or parole, 2/3 are White. 2009 White People 70%, Black people are 12% of population, 2.3mn (2.4, 2.5?) in jail, prison, or parole, 2/3 are Black and Brown. You will notice this change coincides with the introduction of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts.
Selective enforcement of the law, targeted incarceration, and disproportionate sentencing. That's how racist societies dispose of "undesirables".
It's called White Supremacy.
Oh, yeah, Mr. Conahan ain't gonna send any big boss lawyer's white kid to prison - they're gonna be poor white, or black or brown.
That's another thing we need to change around here. Need to see some White CEO faces in the general population at Soledad or Vacaville. You know, mixing it up with "the boys".
Urine Hatch was caught electronic spying on Dems. He apologized and that was the end of it. "Getting some of these do-gooder liberals to do what is right is real tough", like prosecuting his tight conservative ass.
Hey SiouxRose---
You wrote:
"Whenever a writer uses the pronoun "we" to define America and America's foreign policy I cringe. WE are not some uniform army in consensus here! The voices of dissent are NOT being heard or respected, and while polls, such as the one taken with respect to universal health care (sans the insurers) clearly demonstrate that the vast majority DOES advocate this approach, the media acts as if the public doesn't even exist, as if it voiced no opinion. Only vetted agents and experts may speak for what "America wants" or "America believes." It was the same way with the public NOT wanting the bailout to Wall St/bankers, and the vast majority wanting troops out of Iraq, an end to that war/occupation/quagmire. Makes a citizen feel like they're behind glass screaming as THE IMPORTANT ACTION takes place on the other side of the barrier."
In your metaphor ("Makes a citizen feel like they're behind glass screaming..."), are you inside the interrogation room seeing darkness and reflection of the bad lighting, or are you outside looking in at the bad lighting? Or maybe even both at this point---but not for long...
Really cogent paragraph you wrote there.
-30-
This is the second time I have read about the 'Kid's for Cash' scandal and neither article discussed what happened to the prisons who bribed the judges to feed them convicts. It's fine and dandy if the two judges get seven years behind bars in a Federal prison, but not if the facilitator (American Corrections Corporation, Wackenhut?) gets off scot free!
Also my guess is that despite the indictment of the judges, the kid's are still rotting in their private 'for-porfit' institutions.
This is the kind of story that should be leading the headlines of the MSM, but it won't happen because it risks exposure of the prison industrial complex in all of its splendor and glory.
Thanks Space Cadet- exactly my thought. it seems manifestly clear that privatizing prisons necessarily leads to filling them. capitalist enterprise needs to grow, to show profits how can they do this without filling their prisons and building more? this is capitalism gone mad.
any tough on crime dingbat in the congress can reasonably be expected to be on the prison industrial complex payroll. it sure as hell is not about just that one guy.
I can only speak for myself from my own experience as a teacher with the California Youth Authority, before and after the passage of a law that allowed 16 yr. old violent and non-violent offenders to go to adult prison, when under health and welfare codes they should have been committed to the Y.A. That law was a referendum by petition that was placed on the ballot and henceforth bought an paid for by the Republican corporate money people who had a vested interest in the wave of 'private prisons.' These by law, state constitution, are illegal. The youth being incarcerated this way are even worse off since they are no longer under the health and welfare codes, but now under adult legal codes of incarceration. No schooling, no vocational training, that was mandatory under health and welfare in the CYA. It becomes a privilege in Adult Corrections. I could go on, and on,...
A major reason so many kids are going to jail, their lives forever tarnished with a criminal record, is the nonviolent, victimless crime of marijuana possession.
It's time to end the failed, destructive policy of marijuana prohibition.
Tell Obama and your elected representatives that marijuana should be legalized and taxed:
http://tinyurl.com/LegalizeTaxIt
I agree it should be legalized. It is less dangerous than many of the commericial pharmaceuticals. Have you heard and read the label warnings? Can cause heart attack, stroke, death etc.
Legalizing marijuana would cut down on organized crime, cut down on the number of kids in jail and possibly provide a source of revenue. Legalizing marijuana is exactly like getting rid of Prohibition of alcohol. Pot is sometimes harmful if used in excess, but making it illegal is the worst way to tackle that problem. Prohibition causes more problems than it cures.
Joe
jclientelle nobody ever bought the farm from too many bowls, folks buy it from alcoholic poisoning all the time and the pharmaceuticals? Getattahere. Mafia guys don't kill people with such efficiency as Big Pharma. See, first you cook the FDA by putting one of your guys (and his staff) at the head of regulation and then the head of enforcement, then you cut back the budget for enforcement and the dirty drugs flow thru like a bad case of diarrhea - just like the bad meat from the huge corp slaughterhouses, same wonderful "de-regulation" the richfilth animals have brought us for 30 years, said it would make everything better, are you better?
Oh yeah, and if they legalize cannabis they open the door for industrial hemp. They call it "weed" for a reason, the sucker grows anywhere and everywhere and it can produce a source of decentralized energy as well as a variety of industrial products that can be not only built but designed to be recycled, it's organic.
We just have to make this government "OURS" AGAIN. That means cutting the richfilth animals out of the game and keeping the survivors on a very tight, restrictive, regulatory leash - and no more, never again, "To Big To Fail" - that is Master's way to rape us to death, and that's no fun even with cannabis.
Peace.
Read the Harvard doctor who wrote "Hellhole" in the latest New Yorker-- solitary confinement is a specialty of the USA onloy since the 1980s and it leads quickly to a mental meltdown-- thank God we did not elect McCain possibly only because of the economic meltdown we saw McCain wafeling and not knowing which way to go...
As for prisons, did anybody say it costs $50,000 a year to be in there? That is not counting the cost of supporting the family left behind with welfare and the failing children left behind.
Havock is what we are seeding out there and we have to each and every time mention to all of our politicians that we do not want more people serving time while learning nothing.
Only 30 years ago, there was at least rehab in the prisons which has now mostly dissapeared.
My only real regret-- I sat in the front row at a town hall meeting with John Kerry and I so wanted to tell him to please start saving our taxpayer money and get some of these prisoners out of jail that would do better elsewhere-- I shut up and did not ask because I did not want to embarrass John Kerry and I wanted him to win over Bush but I SHOULD HAVE ASKED THAT QUESTION---
never again.
From what information I could find, the leading reason for locking away young people is the "crime" of being a runaway. The fact of being a runaway includes being truant,being "uncontrollable," etc.
We are solidly a "Get tough on (fill in the blank)" nation. This is our first and only answer, whether talking about the difficulties of youth, the hell of poverty, or foreign policy.
Back in the early 1970's, I was locked up for a over a year for being a runaway. Nope, no prostitution, crime, etc. I worked an ordinary job, and lived an ordinary life. I was caught. Altogether, I spent maybe four months in solitary.
You grow up, telling yourself that you can overcome anything, if you just try hard enough. I know you're supposed to "just get over it." It doesn't always work out that way.