3 Months in Juvie For a MySpace Joke?

[Brewman_Jax]

3 Months in Juvie For a MySpace Joke? How the For-Profit Prison Industry Locks Up More People Each Year

http://www.alternet.org/story/151540/3_m...each_year/

From the article:

Quote:Seventeen-year-old Hillary Transue did what lots of 17-year-olds do: Got into mischief. Hillary's mischief was composing a MySpace page poking fun at the assistant principal of the high school she attended in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Hillary was an honor student who'd never had any trouble with the law before. And her MySpace page stated clearly that the page was a joke. But despite all that, Hilary found herself charged with harassment. She stood before a judge and heard him sentence her to three months in a juvenile detention facility.

What she expected was perhaps a stern lecture. What she got was a perp walk - being led away in handcuffs as her stunned parents stood by helplessly. Hillary told The New York Times, "I felt like I had been thrown into some surreal sort of nightmare. All I wanted to know was how this could be fair and why the judge would do such a thing."

It wasn't until two years later that she found out why. In Scranton, Pennsylvania, two judges pleaded guilty to operating a kickback scheme involving juvenile offenders. The judges, Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, took more than $2.6 million in kickbacks from a private prison company to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers. Since 2003, Ciaverella had sentenced an estimated 5,000 juveniles. Conahan was accused of setting up the contracts. Many of the youngsters shipped off to the detention centers were first-time offenders.

...

A clear example of the prison-industrial complex collusion with the "justice" system. Greed destroying one of the country's fundamental institutions and supposed protector of freedom and government excess. IMO, this is far more damaging than unpopular verdicts in in high-profile trials.

[Willinois]

Creating a profit motive for sending more people to prison is frighteningly dangerous.

[azmouse]

Scares the hell outta me. AZ is discussing using more privately run prisons. Who knows what offense will get you thrown in jail so they can make a profit.

[Brewman_Jax]

More privatization of government services--why? I've seen no evidence of privatization showing improvement of efficiency and/or delivery of said service. The only one that gets benefit is the holder of the contract and the millions they get from the government. This case shows the trouble that a conflict of interest can cause, and how easily it can happen.

[nofurylike]

mind-blowing. just sickening. how many of the cases we are shocked by come down to this same thing?



thank you for posting that, Brewman_Jax.

"Greed destroying one of the country's fundamental institutions and supposed protector of freedom and government excess .... "

i agree it is far more damaging than people can imagine.