Justice system for juveniles needs oversight
A for-profit juvenile detention facility that improperly imprisoned kids as part of a kickback scheme has quietly closed, a decade after the scandal focused national attention on a system that was ripe for abuse.
The shutdown of the PA Child Care facility in Luzerne County in November is a reminder of a shocking scandal that underscored the need — a continuing one — for an overhaul of Pennsylvania’s so-called justice system for juveniles.
The “kids for cash” scheme resulted in the imprisonment of two Luzerne County judges who had routinely ordered detention — a more palatable word for imprisonment — of juveniles in exchange for payment. It was a scheme that involved hundreds of kids over many months. And it happened under the noses of state and county officials.
The most recent operator of the facility, Mid-Atlantic Youth Services, closed the Luzerne County lockup of its own accord, though it had just been licensed by the state Department of Human Services to operate for another year. No reason was disclosed publicly. Likewise, a sister facility in Butler County, Western PA Child Care, also was shuttered in November, according to a spokeswoman for the state Human Services Department.
In 2009, former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, and another judge, Michael Conahan, closed a county-run juvenile detention center and then accepted more than
$2.5 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of the two for-profit lockups. Ultimately, the state Supreme Court tossed some 4,000 juvenile “convictions” after the scheme was disclosed. Ciavarella remains in prison, continuing his
28-year sentence following his 2011 conviction. Conahan recently was released to home confinement with six years left on his 17-year sentence. The release was due to COVID-19 concerns.
The “kids for cash” scandal shone a light on the failure of the juvenile justice system to protect children. The underpinning of the scheme no doubt was greed. But the greed of a few corrupted individuals was able to thrive in large part because of the secrecy surrounding Pennsylvania’s delinquency court system.
Unlike adult court, all juvenile delinquency proceedings are held behind closed doors. While the intent is to protect the privacy of young people, it also protected the intentional and unintentional wrongdoing of adults.
The system must be changed. Indeed, in December 2019, Gov. Tom Wolf appointed a Juvenile Justice Task Force with an eye toward reform. The task force has been meeting throughout 2020 and more meetings are scheduled for January, February and March of the new year, though policy recommendations initially were to have been presented to the governor in November. There is no shame in extending the life of a task force dealing with such weighty matters.
So far, many important matters have been considered that range from statistics and demographics to brain development of young people.
The task force cannot be allowed to disband before members find a way to provide greater public review of and access to delinquency proceedings.
Dark things can happen in dark places and Pennsylvania’s juvenile justice system is nothing if not opaque. At the least, there should be a presumption of court openness with options for closing proceedings only when the need is justified by attorneys and other court system officials.