Ju$tice

The U.S. has a strong, and largely admirable, system of elected officials at all levels of governance, including judges. We moan about our prison and justice systems, but it's not as bad as what just happened in Pennsylvania.

Once elected, Judge Conahan shut down the state juvenile detention system and used county money to fund a multimillion dollar lease for private contractor Mid Atlantic Youth Services. Then he and Judge Ciavarella started taking bribes ($2.6m between them) to send more children to prison from the operators of these private prisons. Amongst the inmates: 15yr-old Hillary Transue (sent to a wilderness camp for mocking her headteacher on a Myspace page); Phillip Swartley (9 months' boot camp for nicking change for sweets) etc. etc. etc.

It's not just the fault of an overly politicised civic structure - somehow it seemed OK to try these children without lawyers (Ohio: 90% of child defendants had no lawyer). It seemed OK to privatise one of the most serious institutions a country can run (we've done it here too - and there's not much profit in rehabilitation, training for guards etc). 

It's our fault - we've lost our moral and political values (especially on the left because we should know better). When we're looking at children and seeing profit in their imprisonment, we've lost our moral compass. The one bright note in this story is that judges are likely to have a harder time in prison than bent coppers.