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Kids For Cash: Two Judges, Thousands Of Children, And A $2.6 Million Kickback Scheme (2012)

by William Ecenbarger(Favorite Author)

3.96 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1595586849 (ISBN13: 9781595587978)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

New Press, The

review 1: Please read this book. Here is a truly riveting, eye opening story that will make your blood boil. It is about corruption run amuck in our juvenile justice system. This scheme went on from 2007 to 2009 in Luzerene County, PA with trials and sentencing of the corrupt judges not occurring until 2010 and 2011. Juvenile court judge Mark Ciavarela was sentenced to 28 years in prison, ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for back taxes and restitution. He was charged with money laundering, failure to report income, failure to pay taxes, and taking kickbacks. The kickbacks were from privately owned, for-profit juvenile detention facilities that he helped establish. In other words he made money by sending kids to jail. At sentencing Ciaverela apologized to his fami... morely, friends and coworkers, completely ignoring his young victims and their families. There were so many individual cases of abuse of the legal system the magnitude overwhelmed the prosecution. They felt the jury would be overwhelmed trying to understand and navigate a system that even when it works well is hard to understand. The trial judge ended up overturning these cases and expunging the records of thousands of children harmed by this miscarriage of justice. Unfortunately, some truly violent offenders received the same treatment. I could write a book venting about this case, injustice in general, and it's ramifications in our society.
review 2: A fantastic read about a dreadful topic. This book reads like a crime thriller, and I'd call it fun if it weren't about a real-life scheme that involved two judges using their authority to railroad kids to a private detention facility in return for millions of dollars in kickbacks. I found myself in turns amazed at the judges' brazen audacity and infuriated at the indifference to suffering of the people who surrounded and sometimes abetted their crimes. Highly recommended. less

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