Judges Sent Juveniles to Prison Receive $2.6 million in Head Count Kickbacks

Eddie G. Griffin (BASG)

I have known for some time that certain judges were getting kickbacks for every head they sent to prison. I just didn’t have the proof, until now.

The juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses... Wilkes-Barre judges accused of jailing kids for cash.

Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. Both pled guilty to corruption charges. Ironically, the company has been charged with no wrongdoing, but rather claims itself to be the victim of extortion.

The report says that Conahan shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped the two companies secure tens of millions of dollars in contracts with Luzerne County, most of which were dependent on how many juveniles were locked up in their facilities. PA Child Care landed a 20-year agreement worth an estimated $58 million. The contract was later canceled and described as being "too exorbitant", but not before the two judges became rich feeding the Prison Industrial machine with naive juvenile offenders, many of whom were first time offenders, and many more burdened with exaggerated charges for minor offenses.

This is the classic school-to-prison pipeline for the sake of profit and kickbacks.

Although I scream to the high heavens, some people still do not believe the juvenile justice system can operate like this. It must be an abortion, they think. But we have seen instance upon instances, cases like Kurt Kruger, a teenager charged as a lookout for a friend who stole $200 worth of DVD. And, a 14-year old Paris, Texas juvenile charged with assault on a public servant for barging into the school before permitted, and sentenced up to 7 years of her life. And, a schoolyard fight in Jena, Louisiana, that could netted six black youth up to 80 years. And, in the state of Georgia, a 17-year old has consensual sex with a 15-year old and wound up sentenced to 10 years.

Harsh punishment is not the word. It is a rash motive for locking up some many juveniles for such minor offenses. It is a cash motive that banked the corrupt judges $2.6 million. Justice is bought and sold on the streets like merchandise.

When a man has been on the crooked side of the law, he knows which judges are on the take. He knows which cops will contaminate the crime scene and which will fabricate the evidence. He knows which crooked lawyer will put his feet on the ground and get the case dismissed.

Half the story above has never been told.

Last year, Conahan felt compelled to hold a news conference to answer allegations raised against him in a federal drug trial. A witness had claimed that Conahan introduced him to a drug dealer. And, an attorney referred to Conahan as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the case. But Conahan denied the allegations, which he said were made by people seeking favor of prosecutors. Therefore, he was never charged by police nor reprimanded by the state’s judicial conduct board.

These things come as no surprise to me. Juveniles get in trouble and find themselves in front of a judge who sees nothing but dollar signs hanging over their heads. And, no matter how many warnings I give them, juveniles will get involved in drugs, not knowing that there is a crooked judge somewhere who knows their deed and identity, and will probably be sitting on the bench when the court serves them up as a turkeys.

In the above case, kids were hailed before the judges, without lawyers, contrary to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel. The constitution is worthless to a judge on the take.

The Ciavarella and Conahan court was a railroad system. And, people want to ask: Why are so many young people in prison?

It looks like due process of law and smells like justice. But it does not pass the acid test. By the same code and practice, the innocent is convicted and wrongfully sent to prison. Dallas County has exonerated 19 inmates false accused, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned. A Texas Tech college student named Timothy Cole was exonerated posthumously. And, yet the beat goes on like business as usual in the courthouse, and nobody knows the better.

Private prison contractors and their corporate investors look for ever-increasing expansion of the detention system, as if there is no absolute maximum. Take for example the story of privateers going to a Texas town later nicknamed Prisonville because it “host to what’s probably the largest concentration of privatized jail facilities in the world.”

The town of is home to a privately run, 1,000-bed state prison; a county-run, 96-bed jail with space for federal inmates; and a private, 500-bed federal jail. Not content with just $129 million in prison-related debt, the Willacy County Commissioners Court voted in 2007 to finance a $50.1 million, 1000-bed addition to the privately-run 2000-bed “Tent City” for immigrants.

The 3,600 prisoners, one-third of Raymondville’s population, who reside in this penal colony represent the heart of the area’s economy.

According to an article written about "Prisonville": Private prison corporations are a good place to put money – if you are interested in making good money from companies that imprison people for profit. As the two leading private prison firms like to tell investors, it’s a booming business these days not because crime rates are rising but because of the new opportunities in immigrant detention.

So it’s not surprising that Vanguard Group, one of the country’s largest mutual funds companies, puts its investors money into private prison firms, including the country’s two largest: Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group (originally incorporated as Wackenhut). Vanguard Group is also a major investor in Correctional Services Corporation.

Willacy County, Texas is the epicenter of the private prison phenomenon that is sweeping the country, fueled in recent years by the immigrant crackdown. Over the past three years, over 3,000 new “prison beds” have come on line in Raymondville, the county seat, as politicians and Texas developers have attempted to cash in on the federal government’s demand for prison space for detained immigrants. The largest operator is the Utah-based Management and Training Corporation, although GEO Group also has prison operations in Raymondville.