Are we really surprised at this when we have prisons for profit?

Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, two judges in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, pled guilty to receiving cash kickbacks for sending minor juvenile offenders to youth detention centers and camps that are run for profit by Mid Atlantic Youth Services Corp. One of the “youth offenders” was Hillary Transue, a 15-year-old girl who mocked her principal on the Internet. She was sent away to wilderness camp.

Let me repeat this: A 15-year old girl was taken from her parents and sent to a wilderness detention camp for writing something on MySpace.

Are we really surprised by this? Our for-profit criminal justice system trains more criminals each year than it rehabilitates. We invent crimes – including drug prohibition – to lock people up.  When every inmate is a dollar sign, children, like all citizens, become raw materials to be destroyed in the name of profit.

About 50 percent of the children who waived counsel before Ciavarella were sent to some kind of placement, the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center reports. In comparison, the Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission in Pennsylvania found that 8.4 percent of juveniles across the state wind up in placement.

via Pennsylvania rocked by ‘jailing kids for cash’ scandal – CNN.com.

We need change.

New here? Please come back again! (rss)