Once again American justice shines for all the world to see

[Crazy Dave]

Pa. judges accused of jailing kids for cash
Judges allegedly took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juveniles in lockups

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.

Hillary Transue, who was sentenced to a wilderness camp for building a spoof MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal in White Haven, Pa., on Friday. Transue says she did not have an attorney, nor was she informed of her right to one, when she was sentenced by Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella.

More:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29142654/?GT1=43001

[midnight]

1. I was hoping to read that this judge goes to jail.....

[malaise]

2. The bigger issue here for me is how many other judges

are doing the same and how many state and federal officials (who have supported these privatized prisons) are receiving financial benefits from them. Forget not that Cheney has shares on one of them. Time to start digging and maybe we'll see who is involved in neo-slavery.

Gr.

[happyslug]

3. Big news in Pa, and here is the thread from last week on this matter

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=175x14997

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3734166&mesg_id=3737290

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3734166

And at the end of January when the Judges plead guility:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x8455685

[Crazy Dave]

4. Good for you

Some people who don't live in PA or on DU have only read about it for the first time today.

[happyslug]

8. I just wanted to point out the previous threads on this topic, that is all

n/t

[Crazy Dave]

11. BS!

You're one of those people who like to go around posting, "Duh...that's old news" on people's posts who have only just found out about something themselves.

[spanone]

5. this is what happens when you privatize the prison system..folks want to make a profit

legal or illegal

[Crazy Dave]

6. Even before privatization the county prisons were reimbursed for their inmates

I was reading in an article in our local newspaper about 18 years ago so I can't remember if it was the state or the federal government that reimbursed the county for each inmate per day. It was enough of an incentive to encourage many arrests of African-Americans and others with minor offenses like a suspended license.

[happyslug]

7. First the Federal Government ONLY pays for FEDERAL PRISONERS.

Now the Federal Government is generous when you hold Federal prisoners for them, such as illegal aliens or drug dealers, but the Federal Government does NOT pay the prisons for holding NON-Federal Prisoners.

As to the State of Pennsylvania, the state will only pay a county jail to hold a prisoner till a space is available in the State System. Since the State system is over crowded, this turns out to be a two way street, First the prisoner MUST be sentenced to more then one year in Jail, otherwise he stays in the County System. If you are a good kid and follows the rules and do NOT cause to much trouble for the Jail Guards, the Jail can manipulate the system so you stay in the state system for up to 2-3 years (If you are sentence to Five years or longer you are going into the state system). This seems to be the cut off right now, but subject to exceptions. The biggest exception is if the Prisoner is a troublemaker in the Jail, such people, even if sentence to periods of less then one year in jail, are put on the priority list of prisoners to go into the state system (This also provided incentives for the prisoners to behave themselves, they also prefer the county lockup to the state prison system).

Now the state does reimburse the counties to hold these prisoners, especially the ones who have been convicted and sentence to one year or more in prison. This reimbursements pays of the food and clothing of the prisoner but only part of the overhead spent to keep them in Jail (i.e. the County only get partially reimbursed for the cost of manning the Jail and keeping it heated).

In the 1990s, money was made available to build new County Jails to replace older jails built in the late 1800s and now hopelessly obsolete from a modern concept of what a prison should be (for example, Allegheny, Cambria and Bedford counties all built new prisons in the 1990s to replace old jails built in the late 1800s). This construction was Federal and State (With some local funding) financed, with the understanding that the local Jails could be used to hold short term state prisoners (i.e. those sentenced to less then five years AND not troublemakers).

As to local offenses and offenses with sentences of less then a year, those MUST stay in the local Jails under Pennsylvania State Law (Unless a real bad troublemaker). Most Judges know this and prefer to put such people on house arrest or probation then jail. Jail is used only as a threat to get most such people to come up with the money for bail, the cost of probation, and the cost of any ankle bracelet needed to supervise the order for home arrest. This is a great incentive, you be surprised how much child support payments come up once someone is facing jail. To be a valid threat, every so often the Judge has to actually send someone to jail. It is almost always someone who has been in front of the Judge before OR have avoided being in front of the Judge by NOT appearing when Ordered by the Judge to do so. The reason for this is the threat MUST be real, but there is always someone who does NOT treat the threat as real and so he or she goes off to jail. Rare in Support cases but done constantly.

As to low income people, unless it is a jail-able offense (Armed Robbery etc) the treatment is about the same, the county prefer a fine then to jail low income people. The COunty prefer the payment of the fine over any of the reimbursement they get from the State to hold the prisoner. It is at the level of fines that low income people have problems with the local courts, jail time is just another threat for such low income people to come up with the money.

My point is the reimbursement from the state is NOT enough for local Judges to keep someone in Jail, it still cost more to hold these people in Jail then they get from the state. What the local Government wants is the payment of any fines due (and reimbursement to any victims) NOT the low reimbursements from the state. If there is any abuse of the system it is in the nature of Fines, for that is money, money used to operate the criminal Justice system.

[Crazy Dave]

9. You act like what happens in your state happens everywhere

The article in the paper was very clear and detailed about how it benefited the county. By memory I believe the county was getting an $11 net (profit?) per day after factoring the county's costs. The county was cutting every corner to give the bare minimums to the inmates and keep the jail at it's maximum capacity of around 2200. Multiply that by the number of inmates in a month and you get about $750,000 a month plus or minus, $9,000,000 a year which is a lot of money in this hick town. Americans ship jobs overseas just to make one dollar more per widget so don't pretend like you know it all and that everything is the same now as it was back then. Of course now all state and county budgets are in the dumper.

But as I said, it seems that all you want to do is be a horse's ass, argue and pretend like you know more than everybody else and that you knew all the facts about every state's jail systems (because they're just like PA's right?) 18 - 20 years ago I'm glad I posted this so you'd have something to do with your worthless life.

[acmavm]

10. Psst, something you should know about 'prisons' and graft:

<snip>
The prisoners in Morgan County jail were always hungry. The sheriff, meanwhile, was getting a little richer.

Alabama law allowed it: The chief lawman could go light on prisoners' meals and pocket the leftover change. And that's just what the sheriff, Greg Bartlett, did, to the tune of $212,000 over the past three years, despite a state food allowance of only $1.75 per prisoner per day.

<snip>
But that was the whole problem, in Clemon's view. An unusual statute here dating from the early decades of the 20th century allows the state's sheriffs to keep for themselves whatever money is left over after they feed their prisoners. The money allotted by the state is little enough - $1.75 a day per prisoner - but the incentive to skimp is there.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/09/americas/sheriff.php
_________________________________________________________________

Public or private prisons, there is ALWAYS someone out there stealing and scamming and there are no exceptions.

[Crazy Dave]

12. In our county there have been many lawsuits won by inmates

For lack of food, proper medical attention, prescriptions, etc.