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@Skarekrow This is to you. Why can't you "allow" on "your forum" someone like me to post a truthful graph? It doesn't fit "your" agenda?
First of all, I don't think the way you do. I'm a much older man. I can look at pictures all day long on Google. I look at one posted here and can spot it as a one-sided half truth immediately. I show the truth and you bust your drawers. Tell me I'm part of the problem. I don't think like that. I feel something is wrong, so I prove the truth. You think everyone wants a world government? Some people don't have problems with crime the way we do. I use Iran and Saudi Arabia as examples and you run them down as being behind decades. You most likely don't like their OTHER laws and what they do to OTHER people, so you call their mentality outdated. Guess what? NOT TO THEM! There's something to be said for punishment. People understand it. You want to change them, don't you? You should be glad I'm not quoting the Bible.
As for my not addressing something you said? I block most all of your posts. They aren't worth fretting over....not for me. I already know what you said before you said it. It's not my job to try and make you feel better. Not my job to run your errands for you. I act the way my spirit leads me. Oh, that's right: I'm a Christian. Sorry that upsets you. Maybe you think I am outdated, too? Christians aren't perfect; but we are forgiven!
I was all for taking SH and his sons out of power. Had to go through a lot to get to them. I wanted to shred their airstrips and destroy their air force, to protect our men. Next, I hear of a 52 card deck of cards. Not me. We had to destroy the regime to get to him. Not my plan. War isn't fought the way I fight a war these days. Maybe I'm outdated with that, too. So be it. The Israelis saw the Iraqis and their supporters go into Syria with weaponry that was not supposed to be there. They told the world, and the world paid them no mind. The way most of the end war was handled is a necessary sadness for me, even though I was for regime change by force. It left a vacuum. We left there entirely too soon, after destroying their entire regime. We went too far, as far as I was concerned. That's all history. Hard to turn off a machine.
People are judged individually, but you want to wrap them together in a package. Joe Go is convicted of a minor drug charge and has to spend some time. He knows the laws. Had over an ounce of pot and a gun, so there he goes. He knew what over an ounce would get him and committing a felony with a gun would get him. My point? We want Iran to be the new world power in the Middle East? Not me. Obama! Changes in human rights violations and their participation in overthrowing governments should be taken care of before we let them build nukes when they do what they do everywhere. Go stick your head in the sand if you think they are not going to go nuclear. Maybe we should make anything less than a bale of pot legal? I'll get back to you on that one.
Israel is America's biggest ally in the region, but Obama wants Iran. Not me. We sell Israel weapons and Israel fixes them. They share intelligence with us. They are a democracy, though democracies should not be forced on all countries in my opinion. See how well it worked in Iraq? You don't like big corporations and big banks? How easy would it be for an oil-rich environment to pad the pockets of those that want to go to bed with them? They are larger than most banks, but they of course aren't controlled by the banks spoken of here that owns the Federal Reserve. Guess what? That is also a lie. The Fed is not owned by rich people. Do some homework.
Obama's insurance is costing taxpayers more debt that cannot be paid for. Maybe if we make the people that have come into this country illegally and had children here part of our country? More debt. They know they are here illegally. Work for cash. Throw away your tax form when you get it. Change jobs when the Social Security says the number doesn't work. Just talking about it will surely get what? The Latino VOTE!
Judges rule whether people need incarceration or help. It is my guess you don't like our judges. You don't like our laws. Our prisons. Christians? Truth is, I'm sick and tired of being called out by you. We disagree, so deal with it. This is a post for Skarekrow.
Can you tell I'm in pain right now? It doesn't matter. As a person, I accept you the way you are. Please leave me be.
First of all, I don't think the way you do. I'm a much older man. I can look at pictures all day long on Google. I look at one posted here and can spot it as a one-sided half truth immediately. I show the truth and you bust your drawers. Tell me I'm part of the problem. I don't think like that. I feel something is wrong, so I prove the truth. You think everyone wants a world government? Some people don't have problems with crime the way we do. I use Iran and Saudi Arabia as examples and you run them down as being behind decades. You most likely don't like their OTHER laws and what they do to OTHER people, so you call their mentality outdated. Guess what? NOT TO THEM! There's something to be said for punishment. People understand it. You want to change them, don't you? You should be glad I'm not quoting the Bible.
As for my not addressing something you said? I block most all of your posts. They aren't worth fretting over....not for me. I already know what you said before you said it. It's not my job to try and make you feel better. Not my job to run your errands for you. I act the way my spirit leads me. Oh, that's right: I'm a Christian. Sorry that upsets you. Maybe you think I am outdated, too? Christians aren't perfect; but we are forgiven!
I was all for taking SH and his sons out of power. Had to go through a lot to get to them. I wanted to shred their airstrips and destroy their air force, to protect our men. Next, I hear of a 52 card deck of cards. Not me. We had to destroy the regime to get to him. Not my plan. War isn't fought the way I fight a war these days. Maybe I'm outdated with that, too. So be it. The Israelis saw the Iraqis and their supporters go into Syria with weaponry that was not supposed to be there. They told the world, and the world paid them no mind. The way most of the end war was handled is a necessary sadness for me, even though I was for regime change by force. It left a vacuum. We left there entirely too soon, after destroying their entire regime. We went too far, as far as I was concerned. That's all history. Hard to turn off a machine.
People are judged individually, but you want to wrap them together in a package. Joe Go is convicted of a minor drug charge and has to spend some time. He knows the laws. Had over an ounce of pot and a gun, so there he goes. He knew what over an ounce would get him and committing a felony with a gun would get him. My point? We want Iran to be the new world power in the Middle East? Not me. Obama! Changes in human rights violations and their participation in overthrowing governments should be taken care of before we let them build nukes when they do what they do everywhere. Go stick your head in the sand if you think they are not going to go nuclear. Maybe we should make anything less than a bale of pot legal? I'll get back to you on that one.
Israel is America's biggest ally in the region, but Obama wants Iran. Not me. We sell Israel weapons and Israel fixes them. They share intelligence with us. They are a democracy, though democracies should not be forced on all countries in my opinion. See how well it worked in Iraq? You don't like big corporations and big banks? How easy would it be for an oil-rich environment to pad the pockets of those that want to go to bed with them? They are larger than most banks, but they of course aren't controlled by the banks spoken of here that owns the Federal Reserve. Guess what? That is also a lie. The Fed is not owned by rich people. Do some homework.
Obama's insurance is costing taxpayers more debt that cannot be paid for. Maybe if we make the people that have come into this country illegally and had children here part of our country? More debt. They know they are here illegally. Work for cash. Throw away your tax form when you get it. Change jobs when the Social Security says the number doesn't work. Just talking about it will surely get what? The Latino VOTE!
Judges rule whether people need incarceration or help. It is my guess you don't like our judges. You don't like our laws. Our prisons. Christians? Truth is, I'm sick and tired of being called out by you. We disagree, so deal with it. This is a post for Skarekrow.
Can you tell I'm in pain right now? It doesn't matter. As a person, I accept you the way you are. Please leave me be.
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Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
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You can’t spend all that time writing such a post that accuses me of so much and then just ignore me…that would be childish.
What IS my “agenda” actually?
“My forum”? I think no such thing. We all know what happens when you assume.
One sided truth indeed! Yes, you probably are a much older man, good job not dying yet….here’s a medal.
Is that supposed to make you automatically smarter and wiser than me?
Sounds like someone feels inadequate.
I don’t want a world government and never said or implied such a thing.
The answer to rising crime is not to make the punishments harsher…that’s like pulling weeds without taking out the root.
You can block me, go ahead, stop threatening me.
I don’t post replies to you, or allude to you because I’m trying to make you “fret”.
I know your mind is closed tight and locked shut…I post for anyone else who may be reading and believing some of your posts.
I don’t think Christians are wrong or outdated at all….just the hypocritical one’s who are damaging others or the world.
Like the Pastor who asked his congregation to help him buy a private jet.
I don’t want them wrapped together in a package, I said no such thing, nor did I allude to it.
I said that people should be prosecuted and punished for breaking the law.
You started to make sense then devolved back into thinking I’m Muir again.
Did I mention the Federal Reserve AT ALL? Did I mention it once in this thread or conversation or even recently in any thread for that matter?
“Do some homework.” How about you eat a dick and figure out who you’re talking to first.
Just like Bush's still unpaid for wars we are fighting….just like the Medicare part D that is so popular that is still unfunded.
As for the Latinos here in the US….they will soon outnumber the small-minded old white guys.
How many words did you put in my mouth there?
You have this preconceived notion of who you think I am, even as you confuse me with other people you are talking to on here.
Judge me O wise one…go ahead, judge me some more…cast some more stones at me.
I don’t know all the judges in the country so I can’t say that I dislike them all….there are some who are probably quite fair and just.
Most of our laws are fine…it’s laws like campaign finance reform, or lack thereof that I disagree with.
I disagree with locking up non-violent drug offenders….this will never solve the root problem.
Our prisons are fine, unless they go private and start to profit off of the census numbers, then it’s a conflict of interest.
You ignore most of my posts by your own admission, then you turn around and criticize the few confused parts you glanced over.
You obviously have me mixed up with Muir who while we do share some ideas and thoughts, they are not all the same.
(I guess there are worse people to be mixed up with)
I said nothing about your graph.
What IS my “agenda” actually?
“My forum”? I think no such thing. We all know what happens when you assume.
One sided truth indeed! Yes, you probably are a much older man, good job not dying yet….here’s a medal.
Is that supposed to make you automatically smarter and wiser than me?
Sounds like someone feels inadequate.
I don’t want a world government and never said or implied such a thing.
The answer to rising crime is not to make the punishments harsher…that’s like pulling weeds without taking out the root.
I don’t want to CHANGE anyone, only give them the choice to decide for a better way of living…that goes perfectly well with the Bible, go ahead quote it.
You can block me, go ahead, stop threatening me.
I don’t post replies to you, or allude to you because I’m trying to make you “fret”.
I know your mind is closed tight and locked shut…I post for anyone else who may be reading and believing some of your posts.
Really? Wow, you are so smart…and wise…and older.
I don’t think Christians are wrong or outdated at all….just the hypocritical one’s who are damaging others or the world.
Like the Pastor who asked his congregation to help him buy a private jet.
That still doesn’t give anyone the right to act like a dick, and I will call them out no matter their religion or not.
I think you are confusing me with Muir…this thread is about the prison system.
I don’t want them wrapped together in a package, I said no such thing, nor did I allude to it.
I said that people should be prosecuted and punished for breaking the law.
You started to make sense then devolved back into thinking I’m Muir again.
Did I mention the Federal Reserve AT ALL? Did I mention it once in this thread or conversation or even recently in any thread for that matter?
“Do some homework.” How about you eat a dick and figure out who you’re talking to first.
Just like Bush's still unpaid for wars we are fighting….just like the Medicare part D that is so popular that is still unfunded.
As for the Latinos here in the US….they will soon outnumber the small-minded old white guys.
How many words did you put in my mouth there?
You have this preconceived notion of who you think I am, even as you confuse me with other people you are talking to on here.
Judge me O wise one…go ahead, judge me some more…cast some more stones at me.
I don’t know all the judges in the country so I can’t say that I dislike them all….there are some who are probably quite fair and just.
Most of our laws are fine…it’s laws like campaign finance reform, or lack thereof that I disagree with.
I disagree with locking up non-violent drug offenders….this will never solve the root problem.
Our prisons are fine, unless they go private and start to profit off of the census numbers, then it’s a conflict of interest.
You ignore most of my posts by your own admission, then you turn around and criticize the few confused parts you glanced over.
You obviously have me mixed up with Muir who while we do share some ideas and thoughts, they are not all the same.
(I guess there are worse people to be mixed up with)
Last edited:
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
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- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
Here’s a prime example of why the money needs to go from the equation.
She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.
Prosecutors say Judges Michael T. Conahan, and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., above, took kickbacks to send teenagers to detention centers.
She was handcuffed and taken away as her stunned parents stood by.
“I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare,” said Hillary, 17, who was sentenced in 2007. “All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”
The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003.
Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.
The case has shocked Luzerne County, an area in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been battered by a loss of industrial jobs and the closing of most of its anthracite coal mines.
And it raised concerns about whether juveniles should be required to have counsel either before or during their appearances in court and whether juvenile courts should be open to the public or child advocates.
If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar.
They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months.
Lawyers for both men declined to comment.
Since state law forbids retirement benefits to judges convicted of a felony while in office, the judges would also lose their pensions.
With Judge Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said.
They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, the authorities said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers.
Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.
Though he pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday, Judge Ciavarella has denied sentencing juveniles who did not deserve it or sending them to the detention centers in a quid pro quo with the centers.
But Assistant United States Attorney Gordon A. Zubrod said after the hearing that the government continues to charge a quid pro quo.
“We’re not negotiating that, no,” Mr. Zubrod said. “We’re not backing off.”
No charges have been filed against executives of the detention centers.
Prosecutors said the investigation into the case was continuing.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Judge Ciavarella was unusually harsh.
He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10.
He also routinely ignored requests for leniency made by prosecutors and probation officers.
“The juvenile system, by design, is intended to be a less punitive system than the adult system, and yet here were scores of children with very minor infractions having their lives ruined,” said Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center.
“There was a culture of intimidation surrounding this judge and no one was willing to speak up about the sentences he was handing down.”
Last year, the Juvenile Law Center, which had raised concerns about Judge Ciavarella in the past, filed a motion to the State Supreme Court about more than 500 juveniles who had appeared before the judge without representation.
The court originally rejected the petition, but recently reversed that decision.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that children have a constitutional right to counsel.
But in Pennsylvania, as in at least 20 other states, children can waive counsel, and about half of the children that Judge Ciavarella sentenced had chosen to do so.
Only Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina require juveniles to have representation when they appear before judges.
Clay Yeager, the former director of the Office of Juvenile Justice in Pennsylvania, said typical juvenile proceedings are kept closed to the public to protect the privacy of children.
“But they are kept open to probation officers, district attorneys, and public defenders, all of whom are sworn to protect the interests of children,” he said. “It’s pretty clear those people didn’t do their jobs.”
On Thursday in Federal District Court in Scranton, more than 80 people packed every available seat in the courtroom.
At one point, as Assistant United States Attorney William S. Houser explained to Judge Edwin M. Kosik that the government was willing to reach a plea agreement with the men because the case involved “complex charges that could have resulted in years of litigation,” one man sitting in the audience said “bull” loud enough to be heard in the courtroom.
One of the parents at the hearing was Susan Mishanski of Hanover Township.
Her son, Kevin, now 18, was sentenced to 90 days in a detention facility last year in a simple assault case that everyone had told her would result in probation, since Kevin had never been in trouble and the boy he hit had only a black eye.
“It’s horrible to have your child taken away in shackles right in front of you when you think you’re going home with him,” she said. “It wasnice to see them sitting on the other side of the bench.”
Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit
Hillary Transue was sentenced to three months in juvenile detention for a spoof Web page mocking an assistant principal.
At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Hillary Transue was sentenced to three months in juvenile detention for a spoof Web page mocking an assistant principal.
She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.
Prosecutors say Judges Michael T. Conahan, and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., above, took kickbacks to send teenagers to detention centers.
Judge Michael T. Conahan
Instead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.
She was handcuffed and taken away as her stunned parents stood by.
“I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare,” said Hillary, 17, who was sentenced in 2007. “All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”
The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003.
Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.
The case has shocked Luzerne County, an area in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been battered by a loss of industrial jobs and the closing of most of its anthracite coal mines.
And it raised concerns about whether juveniles should be required to have counsel either before or during their appearances in court and whether juvenile courts should be open to the public or child advocates.
If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar.
They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months.
Lawyers for both men declined to comment.
Since state law forbids retirement benefits to judges convicted of a felony while in office, the judges would also lose their pensions.
With Judge Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said.
They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, the authorities said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers.
Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.
Though he pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday, Judge Ciavarella has denied sentencing juveniles who did not deserve it or sending them to the detention centers in a quid pro quo with the centers.
But Assistant United States Attorney Gordon A. Zubrod said after the hearing that the government continues to charge a quid pro quo.
“We’re not negotiating that, no,” Mr. Zubrod said. “We’re not backing off.”
No charges have been filed against executives of the detention centers.
Prosecutors said the investigation into the case was continuing.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Judge Ciavarella was unusually harsh.
He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10.
He also routinely ignored requests for leniency made by prosecutors and probation officers.
“The juvenile system, by design, is intended to be a less punitive system than the adult system, and yet here were scores of children with very minor infractions having their lives ruined,” said Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center.
“There was a culture of intimidation surrounding this judge and no one was willing to speak up about the sentences he was handing down.”
Last year, the Juvenile Law Center, which had raised concerns about Judge Ciavarella in the past, filed a motion to the State Supreme Court about more than 500 juveniles who had appeared before the judge without representation.
The court originally rejected the petition, but recently reversed that decision.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that children have a constitutional right to counsel.
But in Pennsylvania, as in at least 20 other states, children can waive counsel, and about half of the children that Judge Ciavarella sentenced had chosen to do so.
Only Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina require juveniles to have representation when they appear before judges.
Clay Yeager, the former director of the Office of Juvenile Justice in Pennsylvania, said typical juvenile proceedings are kept closed to the public to protect the privacy of children.
“But they are kept open to probation officers, district attorneys, and public defenders, all of whom are sworn to protect the interests of children,” he said. “It’s pretty clear those people didn’t do their jobs.”
On Thursday in Federal District Court in Scranton, more than 80 people packed every available seat in the courtroom.
At one point, as Assistant United States Attorney William S. Houser explained to Judge Edwin M. Kosik that the government was willing to reach a plea agreement with the men because the case involved “complex charges that could have resulted in years of litigation,” one man sitting in the audience said “bull” loud enough to be heard in the courtroom.
One of the parents at the hearing was Susan Mishanski of Hanover Township.
Her son, Kevin, now 18, was sentenced to 90 days in a detention facility last year in a simple assault case that everyone had told her would result in probation, since Kevin had never been in trouble and the boy he hit had only a black eye.
“It’s horrible to have your child taken away in shackles right in front of you when you think you’re going home with him,” she said. “It wasnice to see them sitting on the other side of the bench.”
Here’s a prime example of why the money needs to go from the equation.
Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for ProfitAt worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Hillary Transue was sentenced to three months in juvenile detention for a spoof Web page mocking an assistant principal.
She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.
Prosecutors say Judges Michael T. Conahan, and Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., above, took kickbacks to send teenagers to detention centers.
Judge Michael T. ConahanInstead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.
She was handcuffed and taken away as her stunned parents stood by.
“I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare,” said Hillary, 17, who was sentenced in 2007. “All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing.”
The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.
While prosecutors say that Judge Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Judge Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled.
“In my entire career, I’ve never heard of anything remotely approaching this,” said Senior Judge Arthur E. Grim, who was appointed by the State Supreme Court this week to determine what should be done with the estimated 5,000 juveniles who have been sentenced by Judge Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2003.
Many of them were first-time offenders and some remain in detention.
The case has shocked Luzerne County, an area in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been battered by a loss of industrial jobs and the closing of most of its anthracite coal mines.
And it raised concerns about whether juveniles should be required to have counsel either before or during their appearances in court and whether juvenile courts should be open to the public or child advocates.
If the court agrees to the plea agreement, both judges will serve 87 months in federal prison and resign from the bench and bar.
They are expected to be sentenced in the next several months.
Lawyers for both men declined to comment.
Since state law forbids retirement benefits to judges convicted of a felony while in office, the judges would also lose their pensions.
With Judge Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Judge Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said.
They shut down the county-run juvenile detention center, arguing that it was in poor condition, the authorities said, and maintained that the county had no choice but to send detained juveniles to the newly built private detention centers.
Prosecutors say the judges tried to conceal the kickbacks as payments to a company they control in Florida.
Though he pleaded guilty to the charges Thursday, Judge Ciavarella has denied sentencing juveniles who did not deserve it or sending them to the detention centers in a quid pro quo with the centers.
But Assistant United States Attorney Gordon A. Zubrod said after the hearing that the government continues to charge a quid pro quo.
“We’re not negotiating that, no,” Mr. Zubrod said. “We’re not backing off.”
No charges have been filed against executives of the detention centers.
Prosecutors said the investigation into the case was continuing.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Judge Ciavarella was unusually harsh.
He sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a state rate of 1 in 10.
He also routinely ignored requests for leniency made by prosecutors and probation officers.
“The juvenile system, by design, is intended to be a less punitive system than the adult system, and yet here were scores of children with very minor infractions having their lives ruined,” said Marsha Levick, a lawyer with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center.
“There was a culture of intimidation surrounding this judge and no one was willing to speak up about the sentences he was handing down.”
Last year, the Juvenile Law Center, which had raised concerns about Judge Ciavarella in the past, filed a motion to the State Supreme Court about more than 500 juveniles who had appeared before the judge without representation.
The court originally rejected the petition, but recently reversed that decision.
The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that children have a constitutional right to counsel.
But in Pennsylvania, as in at least 20 other states, children can waive counsel, and about half of the children that Judge Ciavarella sentenced had chosen to do so.
Only Illinois, New Mexico and North Carolina require juveniles to have representation when they appear before judges.
Clay Yeager, the former director of the Office of Juvenile Justice in Pennsylvania, said typical juvenile proceedings are kept closed to the public to protect the privacy of children.
“But they are kept open to probation officers, district attorneys, and public defenders, all of whom are sworn to protect the interests of children,” he said. “It’s pretty clear those people didn’t do their jobs.”
On Thursday in Federal District Court in Scranton, more than 80 people packed every available seat in the courtroom.
At one point, as Assistant United States Attorney William S. Houser explained to Judge Edwin M. Kosik that the government was willing to reach a plea agreement with the men because the case involved “complex charges that could have resulted in years of litigation,” one man sitting in the audience said “bull” loud enough to be heard in the courtroom.
One of the parents at the hearing was Susan Mishanski of Hanover Township.
Her son, Kevin, now 18, was sentenced to 90 days in a detention facility last year in a simple assault case that everyone had told her would result in probation, since Kevin had never been in trouble and the boy he hit had only a black eye.
“It’s horrible to have your child taken away in shackles right in front of you when you think you’re going home with him,” she said. “It was nice to see them sitting on the other side of the bench.”
... Just, wtf. On the plus side, I'm sure their time was totally beneficial for their lives... maybe everyone could use some life-enriching jail time. This is what I mean when I say that half the time, eye for an eye would be mercy compared to what our system hands out. When eye for an eye is kinder to criminals, there are serious problems.
Last edited:
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
- MBTI
- Ni-INFJ-A
- Enneagram
- Warlock
Did you know in many states that children in the foster care system who aren’t adopted go to Jr. High and High school at the local Juvenile Hall amongst the criminal children?
My Ex used to teach at one such place.
Do you think this is creating criminals or helping those innocent children in any positive way?
Truly sad.
My Ex used to teach at one such place.
Do you think this is creating criminals or helping those innocent children in any positive way?
Truly sad.
Yeah, it's not only kids either, the whole system is like that... corrections? If the media wants outrage to sell, there's plenty there.
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
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I’ve got no issue with a fair and just criminal justice system.
I don’t know where some people get such ideas about me.
But I agree…it’s not a “correctional” system anymore….there is no “correcting” going on.
Drug addicts are forced to to detox and are forced to be abstinent, but only 11% (will cite it if you like) receive any kind of further drug treatment.
And so the result is relapse and recidivism.
This is great for the private prisons who make more profit the more prisoners they house.
The problem then is these corporations then lobby the lawmakers and judges to hand down or make stricter sentencing laws for things like drug addiction…profits soar.
Gotta get that yacht somehow, mang.
just me
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Borderline claiming big money pays off lawmakers and judges to put more people in jail is a paranoid way to live. All for money? Tune in next week for, "This Is Your Life", starring Judge Amy. Helps children with her life. Dedicated to fighting injustice in the Juvenile Court. Friends with a little old man that is close-minded.
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Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
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I just stated that I did NOT believe that all judges are crooked.
How much plainer can I make that?
The article I posted does however show that there is a crooked system in places.
Fixing those is my objective…not to undermine the system or fight the man.
Relax.
- MBTI
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- 9 Mediator
Here's some good news for prisoners in TX. Can you believe they had to pass a law on getting raped in prison??!?!?!?1
"In a shift away from his predecessor, Gov. Greg Abbott has informed the U.S. Justice Department
that Texas plans to comply as much as possible with a federal law that aims to prevent prison rape.
Last year, former Gov. Rick Perry said Texas would not follow some requirements of the Prison Rape Elimination Act,
calling it a "counterproductive and unnecessarily cumbersome and costly regulatory mess."
But in a recent letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Abbott made clear the state is now working to put in place every part of the law that it can. "....http://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/22/brief/?mc_cid=d56ab592fe&mc_eid=37b51a92fd
"In a shift away from his predecessor, Gov. Greg Abbott has informed the U.S. Justice Department
that Texas plans to comply as much as possible with a federal law that aims to prevent prison rape.
Last year, former Gov. Rick Perry said Texas would not follow some requirements of the Prison Rape Elimination Act,
calling it a "counterproductive and unnecessarily cumbersome and costly regulatory mess."
But in a recent letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Abbott made clear the state is now working to put in place every part of the law that it can. "....http://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/22/brief/?mc_cid=d56ab592fe&mc_eid=37b51a92fd
just me
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Hence, why solitary confinement would sound better to me than a gang rape; knowing I would have to do something about it to prevent it. Things could get really nasty while they were asleep at night. Glad to hear they are trying to do something about that. That represents how a few barbaric people act in the prison system. Disgusting.
Skarekrow
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So if there is just a few barbaric people in there (who should probably be locked up tight), then the other bunch of other people probably could be rehabilitated, or better yet, not punished for getting caught with the drugs they are addicted to and we put them into treatment….it’s been proven to actually save the state money.
They can use the money for treatment from drug money seized through gang and drug dealer busts.
Skarekrow
~~DEVIL~~
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To those who are still arguing that these issues are overblown should educate yourselves…you can't argue with the facts/statistics…
What say you?
Forty Reasons Our Jails and Prisons Are Full of Black and Poor People
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) reports 2.2 million people are in our nation’s jails and prisons and another 4.5 million people are on probation or parole in the US, totaling 6.8 million people, one of every 35 adults.
We are far and away the world leader in putting our own people in jail.
Most of the people inside are poor and Black.
Here are 40 reasons why - and there are more.
One:
It is not just about crime.
Our jails and prisons have grown from holding about 500,000 people in 1980 to 2.2 million today.
The fact is that crime rates have risen and fallen independently of our growing incarceration rates.
Two:
Police discriminate.
The first step in putting people in jail starts with interactions between police and people.
From the very beginning Black and poor people are targeted by the police.
Police departments have engaged in campaigns of stopping and frisking people who are walking, mostly poor people and people of color, without cause for decades.
Recently New York City lost a federal civil rights challenge to their police stop and frisk practices by the Center for Constitutional Rights during which police stopped over 500,000 people annually without any indication that the people stopped had been involved in any crime at all.
About 80 percent of those stops were of Black and Latinos who compromise 25 and 28 percent of NYC’s total population.
Chicago police do the same thing stopping even more people also in a racially discriminatory way with 72 percent of the stops of Black people even though the city is 32 percent Black.
Three:
Police traffic stops also racially target people in cars.
Black drivers are 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers and Hispanic drivers are 23 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers.
Connecticut, in an April 2015 report, reported on 620,000 traffic stops which revealed widespread racial profiling, particularly during daylight hours when the race of driver was more visible.
Four:
Once stopped, Black and Hispanic motorists are more likely to be given tickets than white drivers stopped for the same offenses.
Five:
Once stopped, Blacks and Latinos are also more likely to be searched.
DOJ reports Black drivers at traffic stops were searched by police three times more often and Hispanic drivers two times more often than white drivers.
A large research study in Kansas City found when police decided to pull over cars for investigatory stops, where officers look into the car’s interior, ask probing questions and even search the car, the race of the driver was a clear indicator of who was going to be stopped: 28 percent of young Black males twenty five or younger were stopped in a year’s time, versus white men who had 12 percent chance and white women only a 7 percent chance.
In fact, not until Black men reach 50 years old do their rate of police stops for this kind of treatment dip below those of white men twenty five and under.
Six:
Traffic tickets are big business.
And even if most people do not go directly to jail for traffic tickets, poor people are hit the worst by these ticket systems.
As we saw with Ferguson where some of the towns in St. Louis receive 40 percent or more of their city revenues from traffic tickets, tickets are money makers for towns.
Seven:
The consequences of traffic tickets are much more severe among poor people.
People with means will just pay the fines.
But for poor and working people fines are a real hardship.
For example, over 4 million people in California do not have valid driver’s licenses because they have unpaid fines and fees for traffic tickets.
And we know unpaid tickets can lead to jail.
Eight:
In schools, African American kids are much more likely to be referred to the police than other kids.
African American students are 16 percent of those enrolled in schools but 27 percent of those referred to the police.
Kids with disabilities are discriminated against at about the same rate because they are 14 percent of those enrolled in school and 26 of those referred to the police.
Nine:
Though Black people make up about 12 percent of the US population, Black children are 28 percent of juvenile arrests. DOJ reports that there are over 57,000 people under the age of 21 in juvenile detention.
The US even has 10,000 children in adult jails and prisons any given day.
Ten:
The War on Drugs targets Black people.
Drug arrests are a big source of bodies and business for the criminal legal system.
Half the arrests these days are for drugs and half of those are for marijuana.
Despite the fact that Black and white people use marijuana at the same rates, a Black person is 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than a white person.
The ACLU found that in some states Black people were six times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites.
For all drug arrests between 1980 and 2000 the U.S. Black drug arrest rate rose dramatically from 6.5 to 29.1 per 1,000 persons; during the same period, the white drug arrest rate barely increased from 3.5 to 4.6 per 1,000 persons.
Eleven:
Many people in jail and prison because the US has much tougher drug laws and much longer sentences for drug offenses than most other countries.
Drug offenders receive an average sentence of 7 months in France, twelve months in England and 23 months in the US.
Twelve:
The bail system penalizes poor people.
Every day there are about 500,000 people are in jails, who are still presumed innocent and awaiting trial, just because they are too poor to pay money to get out on bail.
Not too long ago, judges used to allow most people, even poor people to be free while they were awaiting trial but no more.
In a 2013 study of New York City courts, over 50% of the people held in jail awaiting trial for misdemeanor or felony charges were unable to pay bail amounts of $2500 or less.
Thirteen:
This system creates a lot of jobs.
Jails and prisons provide a lot of jobs to local, state and federal officials.
To understand how this system works it is good to know the difference between jails and prisons.
Jails are local, usually for people recently arrested or awaiting trial.
Prisons are state and federal and are for people who have already been convicted.
There are more than 3000 local jails across the US, according to the Vera Institute, and together usually hold about 500,000 people awaiting trial and an additional 200,000 or so convicted on minor charges.
Over the course of a year, these local jails process over 11.7 million people.
Prisons are state and federal lockups which usually hold about twice the number of people as local jails or just over 1.5 million prisoners.
Fourteen:
The people in local jails are not there because they are a threat to the rest of us.
Nearly 75 percent of the hundreds of thousands of people in local jails are there for nonviolent offenses such as traffic, property, drug or public order offenses.
Fifteen:
Criminal bonds are big business.
Nationwide, over 60 percent of people arrested are forced to post a financial bond to be released pending trial usually by posting cash or a house or paying a bond company.
There are about 15,000 bail bond agents working in the bail bond industry which takes in about $14 billion every year.
Sixteen:
A very high percentage of people in local jails are people with diagnosed mental illnesses.
The rate of mental illness inside jails is four to six times higher than on the outside.
Over 14 percent of the men and over 30 percent of the women entering jails and prisons were found to have serious mental illness in a study of over 1000 prisoners.
A recent study in New York City’s Rikers Island jail found 4,000 prisoners, 40 percent of their inmates, were suffering from mental illness.
In many of our cities, the local jail is the primary place where people with severe mental problems end up.
Yet treatment for mental illness in jails is nearly non-existent.
Seventeen:
Lots of people in jail need treatment.
Nearly 70 percent of people prison meet the medical criteria for drug abuse or dependence yet only 7 to 17 percent ever receive drug abuse treatment inside prison.
Eighteen:
Those who are too poor, too mentally ill or too chemically dependent, though still presumed innocent, are kept in cages until their trial dates.
No wonder it is fair to say, as the New York Times reported, our jails “have become vast warehouses made up primarily of people too poor to post bail or too ill with mental health or drug problems to adequately care for themselves.”
Nineteen:
Poor people have to rely on public defenders.
Though anyone threatened with even a day in jail is entitled to a lawyer, the reality is much different.
Many poor people facing misdemeanor charges never see a lawyer at all.
For example, in Delaware more than 75 percent of the people in its Court of Common Pleas never speak to a lawyer.
A study of Jackson County Michigan found 95 percent of people facing misdemeanors waived their right to an attorney and have plead guilty rather than pay a $240 charge for a public defender.
Thirteen states have no state structure at all to make sure people have access to public defenders in misdemeanor courts.
Twenty:
When poor people face felony charges they often find the public defenders overworked and underfunded and thus not fully available to provide adequate help in their case.
In recent years public defenders in Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri and Pennsylvania were so overwhelmed with cases they refused to represent any new clients. Most other states also have public defender offices that have been crushed by overwork, inadequate finances and do not measure up to the basic principles for public defenders outlined by the American Bar Association.
It is not uncommon for public defenders to have more than 100 cases going at the same time, sometimes several hundred.
Famous trial lawyer Gerry Spence, who never lost a criminal case because of his extensive preparation for each one, said that if he was a public defender and represented a hundred clients he would never have won a case.
Twenty One:
Lots of poor people plead guilty.
Lack of adequate public defense leads many people in prison to plead guilty.
The American Bar Association reviewed the US public defender system and concluded it lacked fundamental fairness and put poor people at constant risk of wrongful conviction.
"All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is occurring...The fundamental right to a lawyer that America assumes applies to everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the US."
Twenty Two:
Many are forced to plead guilty.
Consider all the exonerations of people who were forced by police to confess even when they did not do the crime who were later proven innocent: some criminologists estimate 2 to 8 percent of the people in prison are innocent but pled guilty.
One longtime federal judge estimates that there is so much pressure on people to plead guilty that there may easily be 20,000 people in prison for crimes they did not commit.
Twenty Three:
Almost nobody in prison ever had a trial.
Trials are rare in the criminal injustice system.
Over 95 percent of criminal cases are finished by plea bargains.
In 1980, nearly 20 percent of criminal cases were tried but that number is reduced to less than 3 percent because sentences are now so much higher for those who lose trials, there are more punishing drug laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and more power has been given to prosecutors.
Twenty Four:
Poor people get jail and jail makes people worse off.
The poorest people, those who had to remain in jail since their arrest, were 4 times more likely to receive a prison sentence than those who got out on bail.
There are tens of thousands of rapes inside jails and prisons each year.
DOJ reports over 4,000 inmates are murdered each year inside each year.
As US Supreme Court Justice Kennedy told Congress recently “This idea of total incarceration just isn’t working. And it’s not humane. We [society and Congress and the legal profession] have no interest in corrections, nobody looks at it.”
Twenty Five:
Average prison sentences are much longer than they used to be, especially for people of color.
Since 1990, the average time for property crimes has gone up 24 percent and time for drug crimes has gone up 36 percent.
In the US federal system, nearly 75 percent of the people sent to prison for drug offenses are Black or Latino.
Twenty Six:
There is about a 70 percent chance that an African American man without a high school diploma will be imprisoned by the time he reaches his mid-thirties; the rate for white males without a high school diploma is 53 percent lower.
In the 1980, there was only an 8 percent difference.
In New York City, for example, Blacks are jailed at nearly 12 times the rate of whites and Latinos more than five times the rate of whites.
Twenty Seven:
Almost 1 of 12 Black men ages 25 to 54 are in jail or prison, compared to 1 in 60 nonblack men.
That is 600,000 African American men, an imprisonment rate of five times that of white men.
Twenty Eight:
Prison has become a very big private business.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) owns and runs 67 for-profit jails in 20 states with over 90,000 beds.
Along with GEO (formerly Wackenhut), these two private prison companies have donated more than $10 million to candidates and spent another $25 million lobbying according to the Washington Post.
They lobby for more incarceration and have doubled the number of prisoners they hold over the past ten years.
Twenty Nine:
The Sentencing Project reports that over 159,000 people are serving life sentences in the US. Nearly half are African American and 1 in 6 are Latino.
The number of people serving life in prison has gone up by more than 400% since 1984.
Nearly 250,000 prisoners in the US are over age 50.
Thirty:
Inside prisons, the poorest people are taken advantage of again as most items such as telephone calls to families are priced exorbitantly high, some as high as $12.95 for a 15 minute call, further separating families.
Thirty One:
The DOJ reports another 3.9 million people are on probation.
Probation is when a court puts a person under supervision instead of sending them to prison.
Probation is also becoming a big business for private companies which get governments to contract with them to collect outstanding debts and supervise people on probation.
Human Rights Watch reported in 2014 that over a thousand courts assign hundreds of thousands of people to be under the supervision of private companies who then require those on probation to pay the company for the supervision and collect fines, fees and costs or else go to jail.
For example, one man in Georgia who was fined $200 for stealing a can of beer from a convenience store was ultimately jailed after the private probation company ran up over a thousand dollars in in fees.
Thirty Two:
The DOJ reports an additional 850,000 people are on parole.
Parole is when a person who has been in prison is released to serve the rest of their sentence under supervision.
Thirty Three:
The DOJ reported in 2012 that as many as 100 million people have a criminal record, and over 94 million of those records are online.
Thirty Four:
Everyone can find out people have a record.
Because it is so easy to access to arrest and court records, people who have been arrested and convicted face very serious problems getting a job, renting an apartment, public assistance, and education.
Eighty-seven percent of employers conduct background checks.
Employment losses for people with criminal records have been estimated at as much as $65 billion every year.
Thirty Five:
Race is a multiplier of disadvantage in unemployment for people who get out of prison.
A study by Professor Devah Pager demonstrated that employers who were unlikely to even check on the criminal history of white male applicants, seriously discriminated against all Black applicants and even more so against Black applicants with criminal records.
Thirty Six:
Families are hurt by this.
The Sentencing Project reports 180,000 women are subject to lifetime bans from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families because of felony drug convictions.
Thirty Seven:
Convicted people cannot get jobs after they get out.
More than 60 percent of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed one year after being released.
Is it a surprise that within three years of release from prison, about two-thirds of the state prisoners were rearrested?
Thirty Eight:
The US spends $80 billion on this big business of corrections every year.
As a retired criminal court judge I know says, “the high costs of this system would be worth it if the system was actually working and making us safer, but we are not safer, the system is not working, so the actual dollars we are spending are another indication of our failure.”
The cost of being number one in incarceration is four times higher than it was in 1982.
Anyone feeling four times safer than they used to?
Thirty Nine:
Putting more people in jail creates more poverty.
The overall poverty rate in our country is undoubtedly higher because of the dramatic increase in incarceration over the past 35 years with one research project estimating poverty would have decreased by 20 percent if we had not put all these extra people in prison.
This makes sense given the fact that most all the people brought into the system are poor to begin with, it is now much harder for them to find a job because of the barriers to employment and good jobs erected by a criminal record to those who get out of prison, the increased number of one parent families because of a parent being in jail, and the bans on receiving food stamps and housing assistance.
Forty:
Putting all these problems together and you can see why the Center for American Progress rightly concludes “Today, a criminal record serves as both a direct cause and consequence of poverty.”
What does it say about our society that it uses its jails and prisons as the primary detention facilities for poor and black and brown people who have been racially targeted and jail them with the mentally ill and chemically dependent?
The current criminal system has dozens of moving parts from the legislators who create the laws, to the police who enforce them, to the courts which apply them, to the jails and prison which house the people caught up in the system, to the public and business community who decides whom to hire, to all of us who either do something or turn our heads away.
These are our brothers and sisters and cousins and friends of our coworkers.
There are lots of proposed solutions.
To learn more about the problems and the solutions are go to places like The Sentencing Project, the Vera Institute, or the Center for American Progress.
Because it’s the right thing to do, and because about 95 percent of the people who we send to prison are coming back into our communities.
What say you?
Forty Reasons Our Jails and Prisons Are Full of Black and Poor People
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) reports 2.2 million people are in our nation’s jails and prisons and another 4.5 million people are on probation or parole in the US, totaling 6.8 million people, one of every 35 adults.
We are far and away the world leader in putting our own people in jail.
Most of the people inside are poor and Black.
Here are 40 reasons why - and there are more.
One:
It is not just about crime.
Our jails and prisons have grown from holding about 500,000 people in 1980 to 2.2 million today.
The fact is that crime rates have risen and fallen independently of our growing incarceration rates.
Two:
Police discriminate.
The first step in putting people in jail starts with interactions between police and people.
From the very beginning Black and poor people are targeted by the police.
Police departments have engaged in campaigns of stopping and frisking people who are walking, mostly poor people and people of color, without cause for decades.
Recently New York City lost a federal civil rights challenge to their police stop and frisk practices by the Center for Constitutional Rights during which police stopped over 500,000 people annually without any indication that the people stopped had been involved in any crime at all.
About 80 percent of those stops were of Black and Latinos who compromise 25 and 28 percent of NYC’s total population.
Chicago police do the same thing stopping even more people also in a racially discriminatory way with 72 percent of the stops of Black people even though the city is 32 percent Black.
Three:
Police traffic stops also racially target people in cars.
Black drivers are 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers and Hispanic drivers are 23 percent more likely to be pulled over than white drivers.
Connecticut, in an April 2015 report, reported on 620,000 traffic stops which revealed widespread racial profiling, particularly during daylight hours when the race of driver was more visible.
Four:
Once stopped, Black and Hispanic motorists are more likely to be given tickets than white drivers stopped for the same offenses.
Five:
Once stopped, Blacks and Latinos are also more likely to be searched.
DOJ reports Black drivers at traffic stops were searched by police three times more often and Hispanic drivers two times more often than white drivers.
A large research study in Kansas City found when police decided to pull over cars for investigatory stops, where officers look into the car’s interior, ask probing questions and even search the car, the race of the driver was a clear indicator of who was going to be stopped: 28 percent of young Black males twenty five or younger were stopped in a year’s time, versus white men who had 12 percent chance and white women only a 7 percent chance.
In fact, not until Black men reach 50 years old do their rate of police stops for this kind of treatment dip below those of white men twenty five and under.
Six:
Traffic tickets are big business.
And even if most people do not go directly to jail for traffic tickets, poor people are hit the worst by these ticket systems.
As we saw with Ferguson where some of the towns in St. Louis receive 40 percent or more of their city revenues from traffic tickets, tickets are money makers for towns.
Seven:
The consequences of traffic tickets are much more severe among poor people.
People with means will just pay the fines.
But for poor and working people fines are a real hardship.
For example, over 4 million people in California do not have valid driver’s licenses because they have unpaid fines and fees for traffic tickets.
And we know unpaid tickets can lead to jail.
Eight:
In schools, African American kids are much more likely to be referred to the police than other kids.
African American students are 16 percent of those enrolled in schools but 27 percent of those referred to the police.
Kids with disabilities are discriminated against at about the same rate because they are 14 percent of those enrolled in school and 26 of those referred to the police.
Nine:
Though Black people make up about 12 percent of the US population, Black children are 28 percent of juvenile arrests. DOJ reports that there are over 57,000 people under the age of 21 in juvenile detention.
The US even has 10,000 children in adult jails and prisons any given day.
Ten:
The War on Drugs targets Black people.
Drug arrests are a big source of bodies and business for the criminal legal system.
Half the arrests these days are for drugs and half of those are for marijuana.
Despite the fact that Black and white people use marijuana at the same rates, a Black person is 3.7 times more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than a white person.
The ACLU found that in some states Black people were six times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than whites.
For all drug arrests between 1980 and 2000 the U.S. Black drug arrest rate rose dramatically from 6.5 to 29.1 per 1,000 persons; during the same period, the white drug arrest rate barely increased from 3.5 to 4.6 per 1,000 persons.
Eleven:
Many people in jail and prison because the US has much tougher drug laws and much longer sentences for drug offenses than most other countries.
Drug offenders receive an average sentence of 7 months in France, twelve months in England and 23 months in the US.
Twelve:
The bail system penalizes poor people.
Every day there are about 500,000 people are in jails, who are still presumed innocent and awaiting trial, just because they are too poor to pay money to get out on bail.
Not too long ago, judges used to allow most people, even poor people to be free while they were awaiting trial but no more.
In a 2013 study of New York City courts, over 50% of the people held in jail awaiting trial for misdemeanor or felony charges were unable to pay bail amounts of $2500 or less.
Thirteen:
This system creates a lot of jobs.
Jails and prisons provide a lot of jobs to local, state and federal officials.
To understand how this system works it is good to know the difference between jails and prisons.
Jails are local, usually for people recently arrested or awaiting trial.
Prisons are state and federal and are for people who have already been convicted.
There are more than 3000 local jails across the US, according to the Vera Institute, and together usually hold about 500,000 people awaiting trial and an additional 200,000 or so convicted on minor charges.
Over the course of a year, these local jails process over 11.7 million people.
Prisons are state and federal lockups which usually hold about twice the number of people as local jails or just over 1.5 million prisoners.
Fourteen:
The people in local jails are not there because they are a threat to the rest of us.
Nearly 75 percent of the hundreds of thousands of people in local jails are there for nonviolent offenses such as traffic, property, drug or public order offenses.
Fifteen:
Criminal bonds are big business.
Nationwide, over 60 percent of people arrested are forced to post a financial bond to be released pending trial usually by posting cash or a house or paying a bond company.
There are about 15,000 bail bond agents working in the bail bond industry which takes in about $14 billion every year.
Sixteen:
A very high percentage of people in local jails are people with diagnosed mental illnesses.
The rate of mental illness inside jails is four to six times higher than on the outside.
Over 14 percent of the men and over 30 percent of the women entering jails and prisons were found to have serious mental illness in a study of over 1000 prisoners.
A recent study in New York City’s Rikers Island jail found 4,000 prisoners, 40 percent of their inmates, were suffering from mental illness.
In many of our cities, the local jail is the primary place where people with severe mental problems end up.
Yet treatment for mental illness in jails is nearly non-existent.
Seventeen:
Lots of people in jail need treatment.
Nearly 70 percent of people prison meet the medical criteria for drug abuse or dependence yet only 7 to 17 percent ever receive drug abuse treatment inside prison.
Eighteen:
Those who are too poor, too mentally ill or too chemically dependent, though still presumed innocent, are kept in cages until their trial dates.
No wonder it is fair to say, as the New York Times reported, our jails “have become vast warehouses made up primarily of people too poor to post bail or too ill with mental health or drug problems to adequately care for themselves.”
Nineteen:
Poor people have to rely on public defenders.
Though anyone threatened with even a day in jail is entitled to a lawyer, the reality is much different.
Many poor people facing misdemeanor charges never see a lawyer at all.
For example, in Delaware more than 75 percent of the people in its Court of Common Pleas never speak to a lawyer.
A study of Jackson County Michigan found 95 percent of people facing misdemeanors waived their right to an attorney and have plead guilty rather than pay a $240 charge for a public defender.
Thirteen states have no state structure at all to make sure people have access to public defenders in misdemeanor courts.
Twenty:
When poor people face felony charges they often find the public defenders overworked and underfunded and thus not fully available to provide adequate help in their case.
In recent years public defenders in Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri and Pennsylvania were so overwhelmed with cases they refused to represent any new clients. Most other states also have public defender offices that have been crushed by overwork, inadequate finances and do not measure up to the basic principles for public defenders outlined by the American Bar Association.
It is not uncommon for public defenders to have more than 100 cases going at the same time, sometimes several hundred.
Famous trial lawyer Gerry Spence, who never lost a criminal case because of his extensive preparation for each one, said that if he was a public defender and represented a hundred clients he would never have won a case.
Twenty One:
Lots of poor people plead guilty.
Lack of adequate public defense leads many people in prison to plead guilty.
The American Bar Association reviewed the US public defender system and concluded it lacked fundamental fairness and put poor people at constant risk of wrongful conviction.
"All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is occurring...The fundamental right to a lawyer that America assumes applies to everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the US."
Twenty Two:
Many are forced to plead guilty.
Consider all the exonerations of people who were forced by police to confess even when they did not do the crime who were later proven innocent: some criminologists estimate 2 to 8 percent of the people in prison are innocent but pled guilty.
One longtime federal judge estimates that there is so much pressure on people to plead guilty that there may easily be 20,000 people in prison for crimes they did not commit.
Twenty Three:
Almost nobody in prison ever had a trial.
Trials are rare in the criminal injustice system.
Over 95 percent of criminal cases are finished by plea bargains.
In 1980, nearly 20 percent of criminal cases were tried but that number is reduced to less than 3 percent because sentences are now so much higher for those who lose trials, there are more punishing drug laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and more power has been given to prosecutors.
Twenty Four:
Poor people get jail and jail makes people worse off.
The poorest people, those who had to remain in jail since their arrest, were 4 times more likely to receive a prison sentence than those who got out on bail.
There are tens of thousands of rapes inside jails and prisons each year.
DOJ reports over 4,000 inmates are murdered each year inside each year.
As US Supreme Court Justice Kennedy told Congress recently “This idea of total incarceration just isn’t working. And it’s not humane. We [society and Congress and the legal profession] have no interest in corrections, nobody looks at it.”
Twenty Five:
Average prison sentences are much longer than they used to be, especially for people of color.
Since 1990, the average time for property crimes has gone up 24 percent and time for drug crimes has gone up 36 percent.
In the US federal system, nearly 75 percent of the people sent to prison for drug offenses are Black or Latino.
Twenty Six:
There is about a 70 percent chance that an African American man without a high school diploma will be imprisoned by the time he reaches his mid-thirties; the rate for white males without a high school diploma is 53 percent lower.
In the 1980, there was only an 8 percent difference.
In New York City, for example, Blacks are jailed at nearly 12 times the rate of whites and Latinos more than five times the rate of whites.
Twenty Seven:
Almost 1 of 12 Black men ages 25 to 54 are in jail or prison, compared to 1 in 60 nonblack men.
That is 600,000 African American men, an imprisonment rate of five times that of white men.
Twenty Eight:
Prison has become a very big private business.
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) owns and runs 67 for-profit jails in 20 states with over 90,000 beds.
Along with GEO (formerly Wackenhut), these two private prison companies have donated more than $10 million to candidates and spent another $25 million lobbying according to the Washington Post.
They lobby for more incarceration and have doubled the number of prisoners they hold over the past ten years.
Twenty Nine:
The Sentencing Project reports that over 159,000 people are serving life sentences in the US. Nearly half are African American and 1 in 6 are Latino.
The number of people serving life in prison has gone up by more than 400% since 1984.
Nearly 250,000 prisoners in the US are over age 50.
Thirty:
Inside prisons, the poorest people are taken advantage of again as most items such as telephone calls to families are priced exorbitantly high, some as high as $12.95 for a 15 minute call, further separating families.
Thirty One:
The DOJ reports another 3.9 million people are on probation.
Probation is when a court puts a person under supervision instead of sending them to prison.
Probation is also becoming a big business for private companies which get governments to contract with them to collect outstanding debts and supervise people on probation.
Human Rights Watch reported in 2014 that over a thousand courts assign hundreds of thousands of people to be under the supervision of private companies who then require those on probation to pay the company for the supervision and collect fines, fees and costs or else go to jail.
For example, one man in Georgia who was fined $200 for stealing a can of beer from a convenience store was ultimately jailed after the private probation company ran up over a thousand dollars in in fees.
Thirty Two:
The DOJ reports an additional 850,000 people are on parole.
Parole is when a person who has been in prison is released to serve the rest of their sentence under supervision.
Thirty Three:
The DOJ reported in 2012 that as many as 100 million people have a criminal record, and over 94 million of those records are online.
Thirty Four:
Everyone can find out people have a record.
Because it is so easy to access to arrest and court records, people who have been arrested and convicted face very serious problems getting a job, renting an apartment, public assistance, and education.
Eighty-seven percent of employers conduct background checks.
Employment losses for people with criminal records have been estimated at as much as $65 billion every year.
Thirty Five:
Race is a multiplier of disadvantage in unemployment for people who get out of prison.
A study by Professor Devah Pager demonstrated that employers who were unlikely to even check on the criminal history of white male applicants, seriously discriminated against all Black applicants and even more so against Black applicants with criminal records.
Thirty Six:
Families are hurt by this.
The Sentencing Project reports 180,000 women are subject to lifetime bans from Temporary Assistance to Needy Families because of felony drug convictions.
Thirty Seven:
Convicted people cannot get jobs after they get out.
More than 60 percent of formerly incarcerated people are unemployed one year after being released.
Is it a surprise that within three years of release from prison, about two-thirds of the state prisoners were rearrested?
Thirty Eight:
The US spends $80 billion on this big business of corrections every year.
As a retired criminal court judge I know says, “the high costs of this system would be worth it if the system was actually working and making us safer, but we are not safer, the system is not working, so the actual dollars we are spending are another indication of our failure.”
The cost of being number one in incarceration is four times higher than it was in 1982.
Anyone feeling four times safer than they used to?
Thirty Nine:
Putting more people in jail creates more poverty.
The overall poverty rate in our country is undoubtedly higher because of the dramatic increase in incarceration over the past 35 years with one research project estimating poverty would have decreased by 20 percent if we had not put all these extra people in prison.
This makes sense given the fact that most all the people brought into the system are poor to begin with, it is now much harder for them to find a job because of the barriers to employment and good jobs erected by a criminal record to those who get out of prison, the increased number of one parent families because of a parent being in jail, and the bans on receiving food stamps and housing assistance.
Forty:
Putting all these problems together and you can see why the Center for American Progress rightly concludes “Today, a criminal record serves as both a direct cause and consequence of poverty.”
What does it say about our society that it uses its jails and prisons as the primary detention facilities for poor and black and brown people who have been racially targeted and jail them with the mentally ill and chemically dependent?
The current criminal system has dozens of moving parts from the legislators who create the laws, to the police who enforce them, to the courts which apply them, to the jails and prison which house the people caught up in the system, to the public and business community who decides whom to hire, to all of us who either do something or turn our heads away.
These are our brothers and sisters and cousins and friends of our coworkers.
There are lots of proposed solutions.
To learn more about the problems and the solutions are go to places like The Sentencing Project, the Vera Institute, or the Center for American Progress.
Because it’s the right thing to do, and because about 95 percent of the people who we send to prison are coming back into our communities.
Nixie
Resurrected
- MBTI
- ENTP
I think it becomes obvious that there are still historic economic conditions that contribute to the issue or in plainer words the fact that the US engaged in racially based discrimination for generations. Most people just blithely think civil rights is a done deal but we aren't one generation out from segregation.
muir
Banned
- MBTI
- INFJ
When slavery ended in the US the south just started locking up black guys under tenuous charges so that they could put them into chain gangs; they kept slavery alive that way
Now they do it through the privatised prison system where prisoners are put to work producing goods and services that create profits for the corporations
The police force and the judiciary no doubt receive financial kick backs for making arrests and convictions so that the prisons remain full
The police are also pressured to harass the public to meet insane quota demands
Now they do it through the privatised prison system where prisoners are put to work producing goods and services that create profits for the corporations
The police force and the judiciary no doubt receive financial kick backs for making arrests and convictions so that the prisons remain full
The police are also pressured to harass the public to meet insane quota demands