Money owners of a for-profit juvenile detention center could make slamming the bars.
Federal prosecutors called it “Kids For Cash.”
An owner of a private detention center, Robert Powell, was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison Friday for allegedly paying kickbacks to two county judges in Pennsylvania. Powell got off relatively easy after cooperating with prosecutors.
Earlier this year, Luzerne County’s former president judge Michael Conahan was sentenced to 17 1/2 years, and Judge Mark Ciavarella, a.k.a. “Mr. Zero Tolerance,” was sentenced to 28 years.
The case is a testament to the effectiveness of economic incentives, getting county judges to incarcerate kids just for doing what kids sometimes do:
—A 10-year-old girl reportedly got a month in a detention center for accidentally setting her bedroom on fire.
—A 13-year-old boy reportedly got 48 days for throwing food at his mother’s boyfriend during an argument.
—A 16-year-old girl reportedly got a month in a boot camp for creating a Web page making fun of the assistant principal of her high school.
—A 17-year-old boy reportedly got five months for drug paraphernalia — not drugs themselves — and it was his first offense.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had to dismiss 4,000 juvenile cases because of the compromising kickbacks.
The American Civil Liberties Union cited the case in a report it released last week called “Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration.” Read the ACLU report. Source/full story