Judges Take Cash to Jail Juveniles

The Associated Press updated 6:56 p.m. MT, Wed., Feb. 11, 2009 WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - For years, 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. The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.

In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. “I’ve never encountered, and I don’t think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids’ lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money,” said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre.

Prosecutors say 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. The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward. No company officials have been charged, but the investigation is still going on.

The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles’ records expunged. Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it. Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel.

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California Ordered to Reduce Prison Population

58,000 Non-Violent Prisoners Ordered Released

(CNN) -- Federal judges tentatively ruled on Monday that California must reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded prison system by up to 40 percent to stop a constitutional violation of prisoners' rights. California must cut the number of inmates in its prison system by up to 40 percent, judges have ruled. "Overcrowding is the primary cause of the unconstitutional conditions that have been found to exist in the California prisons," the court concluded.

California state officials, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, immediately promised to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

"The governor and I strongly disagree with this ruling," said Matthew Cate, California's corrections and rehabilitation secretary. Implementing the court's ruling would result in up to 58,000 prisoners being released, Cate said, describing it as a threat to public safety. He disputed the court's contention that the prisons are unsafe the way they are now.

But in 2006, Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency because of "severe overcrowding" in California's prisons, saying it had caused "substantial risk to the health and safety of the men and women who work inside these prisons and the inmates housed in them." In court documents, the judges said the state's prison system was at about 200 percent of capacity.

The ruling is the result of two class-action lawsuits on behalf of California prisoners who said medical and mental health care in the state's prisons are so inadequate that they violate the federal constitution's Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

The judges said their ruling is tentative so that the parties involved can plan accordingly, essentially giving them an opportunity to work things out themselves before an official ruling is rendered. The court suggests a two- to three-year window for reducing the number of prisoners in the system.

Those who would be released would be very low risk, according to Don Specter, director of the Prison Law Office, a group that provides free legal services to California prisoners. He said the ruling would affect those in jail for three or four months because of parole violations, those getting early release dates, and those who might qualify for early release for taking part in rehabilitation programs.

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On the Brink

As I've waded through the rising floodwaters, so to speak, of our social and economic dilemmas this past several months, I find it difficult to maintain a positive attitude about anything. Yet I've been through enough hell in my life to know that a positive attitude is the only way out of any trouble...and I mean real trouble. Not that what we're facing isn't "real," but that if I could significantly alter the outcome of actual physical, mental and emotional endangerment and confinement in my past experiences with right choice of attitude, I know without a shadow of doubt that we can, too...collectively as a nation.

The preeminent psychiatrist, Dr. Victor Frankel, wrote in his classic book, Man's Search For Meaning, of how he and a few of his fellow Jews survived Nazi concentration camps and ultimately gained their freedom by fundamental attitude shifting, and he detailed how it was done repeatedly through the most horrendous circumstances that we who view history only think we know about from the books, movies and stories of that time. But his, and their, journeys were very real. He wrote later on, after 3 1/2 years of daily torture and constant threats of imminent death in every passing hour that our only "real freedom" was our choice of attitude.

I read that book while I was in federal prison in the mid-80's, and turned an almost certain 25 years in prison without chance of parole into what ultimately worked out to be 2 1/2 years...and in almost every instance, turned my adversaries into allies. How did I do that? I chose to find something for which to be grateful in every day, and discovered that even in my adversaries I could find something to be positive about...and even respectful. I didn't "kiss up" to anyone, nor did I compromise my values or beliefs. I just chose to view things from a different perspective than being a "victim" or reacting to what or who was confronting me at any point.

We're "on the brink" of financial and political disaster, according to everything in the news, and according to many...if not most...of my friends and associates in the business world. While that may be true, I'm choosing to look at the crises in the world as merely rapids ahead that need to be traveled through not with horror or doom and gloom, but with a healthy sense of keeping ourselves off the rocks and trusting the ride...and working together to make it through. There are calm waters behind these troubled ones, and we can only make it worse by reacting to, or resisting or fearing what's coming. We've all known for quite some time that it was coming, so the only thing to do now is to maintain a good and positive attitude about the outcome...and be willing to suspend our pre-conceived notions about who's who and what's what.

There's a huge shake-out and cleaning up going on right now, and it won't be easy. The rats and the cockroaches are coming out of the woodwork, and it's getting easier and easier to spot them and put them where they belong. Meanwhile, we need to keep our focus on the rocks ahead and stay clear of them. And we need to be willing to work together to bring about a better world where truth, honesty and integrity cease to be merely words but more a way of life.

To me, that's worth going over the brink for. I've had enough of words, posturing and promising. Let's embrace the coming times as our parents, grandparents and Forefathers (and mothers) did through numerous wars, depressions and other challenges. We're still pioneers in every sense of the term, just like them...only our "frontier" may be the most arduous one of all...that being the human mind. Only right attitude and a healthy state of being can change that for the collective betterment of society in this day and age. That "brink" may look pretty scary right now, but it may not be all that bad...or that deep. In any case, there's no avoiding it; we might as well get ready for it, and learn to do things less selfishly and fearfully.

Don Kirchner
Sedona, AZ