Kids for Cash

CHICAGO — “Kids for Cash” is the name given to a scandal and to a new documentary film about what’s been going on in Luzerne County, PA, over the last decade. In 2011, two judges were convicted of taking millions of dollars from two private profit making juvenile detention centers in return for sending thousands of juveniles to their detention camps. Harsh sentences were handed down for minimal offenses such as mocking a principal, trespassing into a vacant building and petty theft. Children as young as 14 ended up spending years locked up in these detention centers. Young lives were interrupted and destroyed by these actions and the heartache for their families can never be erased.
While prison sentences and fines were given to the two judges and one property developer, this couldn’t have happened without the participation of courtroom officials, the police and even school officials carrying out a “zero tolerance” policy towards children. You hear about a pipeline from school to prison operating in urban centers in mainly minority communities, but Luzerne County is over 90% white. The huge numbers of African American and Latino youngsters and adults that are stopped, searched, and incarcerated for minor offenses or even falsified offenses is documented fact, but racism is not the whole story as it doesn’t explain Luzerne County. So what’s going on?
In Luzerne County, 15% of the people live below the poverty line and the medium income is well below the national average. One thing all youngsters have in common is that they are soon to be in need of a place in the economy. And that’s a problem. No amount of job counseling and resume writing classes can create a labor market. Computers and robotics are constantly eliminating the need for workers in every sector of the economy. It’s not that there isn’t plenty to do, for example fixing the infrastructure, taking care of people and saving our environment. But if it doesn’t make a buck, if it isn’t corporate controlled—then it has a hard time surviving. Instead of jobs, locking up unemployable people is now a fact of life.
The “Kids for cash” scandal opened the door for the community to demand reforms. Commenting on these reforms, Robert May (the maker of the film) said that now in PA, “You can’t go before a juvenile court without having a lawyer, and you can’t shackle and handcuff a kid except in extreme circumstances.” But, he added, the state of PA still spends $800,000 a day, or $300 million a year on “the incarceration of children.”
All across the country parents are protesting “zero tolerance” polices, recognizing that it is not solving problems. Fear of young people is an excuse to spend tax dollars, not on providing jobs, but on putting young people in cold storage. If they are locked up—they can’t vote, protest or organize for a better future for themselves. If we are to unite and truly make reforms, everything depends on our understanding that there is enough knowledge and resources to do so. We don’t have scarcity; we have an abundance that should belong to our children.