http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/12/...tr=U.S._4797237

ok check this out. In the LS SB they talk about the prisons being privately owned. who knew they could be so close to truth? This is a rl story of two judges who shut down the area's JV prisons and then started sending the kids to privately owned prisons, who in turn gave the judges kick backs for each body they received.

This is so close to something SR I had to reasd the article twice to make sure it wasn't on the Onion page.

am I jaded if this doesn't disgust me anymore than anything else that's happened recently?

The problem isn't just a corrupt judge; it's the entire juvenile justice system.

You see, the adult justice system is focused on punishing people and there is a great deal of effort made to ensure that the right person is punished, which is why jury trials are standard. Juvinile justice, on the other hand, is always focused on serving the best interests of the child, supposedly. For this reason, it is substantially less adversarial than the adult system is. The standard for juvenile courts is the bench trial, where the judge decides guilt or innocence, with jury trials being extremely rare. The US Supreme Court has even ruled that jury trials are an adult right that is not necessary in the juvenile justice system. In other words, even if the kid wants a jury he won't necessarily get one, leaving him at the mercy of the judge. This is supposed to be offset by the fact that juvinile courts are supposed to be focused on correcting the behavior, rather than punishing it, and the penalties are usually much lighter. Unfortunately, many teens in the juvinile system don't even have lawyers, and thus cannot advocate for themselves very well. Often, the teens who are tried as adults get the fairer chance.

You don't even want to know about what the kids chances are if racism or classism become an issue. It's a sad truth that kids are a class that is allowed to be abused by the system. They have no right to the own to protect themselves with, and the government gives them little extra protection to make up for it.

I love that the company is called "PA Child Care LLC". What will we call the adult ones? Hell, correctional facility is already pretty generous - maybe "Job Training Center, Inc"?

That's crazy! Very SR though.

I doubt we are going to have an Awakening (we can always hope) but we look like we are headed for SR anyway.

I noticed the article mentioning this as well. Do juvenile defendents not get public defenders as a matter of course in the US?

I hate to mention any movie with Shia LaBeauff (or however his name is spelled) but the movie "Holes" kinda sums it up. Kid looks guilty, Judge sentances him to Juvie. Not much of a trial, no evidence gathering, no testimony. The police are too busy dealing with 'real' criminals to deal with 'small' criminals.

While juvenile defendants have an absolute right to counsel, it isn't always invoked. Often, the defendant or the defendant's parents will attempt to negotiate an informal disposition, which is much more difficult to acomplish is an lawyer is retained.

Short answer, no.

Slightly longer answer:

By law, a bench trial (judge only, no jury) is allowed but not the norm. However, the US Supreme Court ruled that juvenile defendants do not automatically have a right to a public defender. Hence, most states assume that you don't want it. Some states don't allow it.


I am not a lawyer but I enjoy US Constitutional issues.

In short, if your family doesn't have a private attorney, you are S.O.L.

Your family poor, sorry, too bad.

Let me guess: bribing the judge was legal? The only crime is "accepting a bribe"? No wait. The only crime is doing what you promised to do in exchange for the bribe?

what is a bribe and what is a gift unrelated to actions taken is a hard line to draw...

Yeah, being a "child" you actually don't have many rights. It's pretty scary when you think how vulnerable kids could be to abusive adults who know how to use the system. I'm sure glad that I'm well over 21 by now.

This is disgusting. In a lot of cases, I'm not in favour or imprisonment because I just see it as ruining peoples lives and pushing them to be even more criminal behaviour rather than solving the reasons they became criminals in the first place. But with these two judges, it's almost impossible to think of anything more fitting than that they should go to prison just as they inflicted that fate on all these children.

Locking up children for profit. I'm usually pretty even-tempered, despite a lot of provocation sometimes, but I guess we all have holes in our armour that get through and make us really angry. There are some people you would just like to walk up to and spit on them.

I'd also like to see the companies that made these bribes taken apart with the people responsible facing criminal charges. They deserve them too.

The system is scary for everybody. It's big, ominous, and impossible to fight without a terrorist network the size of Cobra. And those in positions of power can do a great deal of crap to anyone. Sometimes they can caught, usually they don't. Kids have fewer recourses if they're screwed by the system, but ultimately they're screwed less than adults can be. Juvenile detention ends at 18 no matter what you were convicted of and it doesn't impair your civil rights. With adults, the consequences can be much worse.
Unfortunately, the fact that it is less also makes the unjust application of it seem more tolerable, thus reducing overall scrutiny.


But an adult is pretty vulnerable to a kid who knows how to game the system, about as much so as a kid is to an adult. There is nothing more frightening to an adult than a shortsighted child who has just learned how powerful false yet plausible molestation allegations can be.

Isn't it possible in the US that kids get treated as full adults at court? I remember reading a story about a dozen or so kids of the US that have been sentenced life-long imprisonment even though they haven't been 16 at the date of the crime.

For certain crimes, at certain times, for those of certain genders and certain skin colors.

It is more a matter of poverty than either of those two..the poor have more to gain from committing crimes than the wealthy (who have much more to loose).

in other words, eliminate poverty and one eliminates the biggest single reason for crime...

not going to happen tho...

It doesn't help that a jury WILL convict a teenager unless there is more then considerable doubt. I think that might in part be why some states have a bench trail. I spent a lot of time in court when I was in my teens and I learned fast that you don't want to sit in front of a jury. On the other had, I was able to go through a dozen trials with little more then a slap on the wrist by just being respectful in court which was a rarity for these judges. To be honest, I deserved a lot more time in lock-up then I got.

The fact that you have more and more kids under the age of 16 being charged as an adult is a bit disturbing though. I could see it if you're talking about pathological crimes like serial murder/rape but that's not what's happening.

punishment outstripping crime, news at eleven...

Seems like only the US and Somalia still charge kids under 16 as adults ocassionaly...at least the report said so. Wow.

That being said, grown-up punishment in the US isn't nearly as bad as it can be in other parts of the world.

The funny thing about charging kids as adults is that sometimes it works out in the kid's favor. It all depends on the charges and the circumstances.

For example, if a minor kills a serial-murdering pedophile rapist with several bodies already to his name that the police know of in self defense, and is charged as an adult for murder it is highly likely that a jury will accept the self-defense claim and acquit. A judge might be less likely to do so.

I am always suspicious of people who hold power in locales rather than on a federal level because I believe they are more likely to suffer from Boss Hogg syndrome.

Better Boss Hogg than J. Edgar Hoover. At least with local trouble you can set up strategically-placed ramps around the county.

~J

Yeah, but J. Edgar Hoover had great taste in women's clothing.

There's always the blackmail angle...

/dammit ronin, you beat me to it.

DUDE!! You know how in SR there are all these various lines of clothing that let you be fashionable but also ballistically resistant?

There should be the "J. Edgar Hoover" line, a tasteful line of women's business clothing that has the ability to conceal lots of electronic surveillance equipment, like wires, cameras, satellite uplinks, and so on.

Of course, the J. Edgar Hoover line, while consisting entirely of women's fashions, comes exclusively in men's sizes.

Yes, unless your female character has a BOD score of at least 1 higher than average for your species, you get a +1 TN modifier for social rolls while wearing them because they look a bit too big and it's kind of weird.