After finding some research, some points were clarified. I found out that the culprits did not get away with unjustly locking kids up. They were punished for what they were doing, which somewhat restores my faith in some parts of humanity. I also learned that the size of the incident was much larger than expected. According to the scandal’s records in the Juvenile Law Center website, “The scope of the violations of the children’s rights in Luzerne County turned out to be more egregious than anyone could have imagined. From 2003 to 2008, the Luzerne County judicial corruption scandal altered the lives of more than 2500 children and involved more than 6000 cases. Over 50 percent of the children who appeared before Ciavarella lacked legal representation; 60 percent of these children were removed from their homes. Many of them were sent to one or both of the two facilities at the center of the corruption scandal. Believed to be the largest judicial corruption scandal in our history, the story was featured in a 2009 episode of ABC’s ‘20/20.’” This was far larger than I had ever expected. Something that I still wonder is how did it take so long to notice that something was not quite right with the judgements if a whole 2500 people were involved? My guess is that nobody really suspected anything from the juvenile court, considering they are expected to be very trustworthy.
Source: http://jlc.org/luzerne-county-kids-cash-scandal (Links to an external site.)
Culture, Community, and Civic Engagement 