Kids for Ca$h (FILM REVIEW)
Kids for Ca$h
Film Review
by Kam Williams
Crooked Judges Imprison Minors for Kickbacks in Expose about Pay-to-Play Scheme
Anybody who
needs a new reason to hate lawyers ought to check out this shocking documentary
chronicling a pay-to-play scheme whereby a couple of crooked judges, Michael
Conahan and Mark Ciavarella, enriched themselves at the expense of adolescents
unlucky enough to be arrested in Luzerne
County, Pennsylvania.
The evil pair’s plan involved first condemning the existing juvenile detention
center owned by the county.
Next, they
took millions of dollars in kickbacks from the private corporation hired to
build and then run a larger facility. Furthermore, they secretly signed a
contract with the company in which they agreed to continue to help the firm
maximize profits by keeping the cells filled with juvenile delinquents.
They
subsequently accepted additional checks for each child sent to the prison, most
for long stretches of time and for the flimsiest of infractions. Punishment was
meted out not only for antisocial behavior like cursing at a bus stop, making
fun of the principal on a webpage, and fighting at school, but in cases where
the accused was totally innocent, like the boy arrested for riding a stolen
scooter that had inadvertently been purchased by his parents, and another
arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia that had admittedly been planted
by the local police.
These
youthful offenders as young as 12 were generally denied their right to an
attorney and so fared poorly in the kangaroo court, and far worse behind bars.
It comes as no surprise that they often suffered from a combination of
depression, anxiety, mood swings and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, even years
after being paroled. Some would become trapped in the criminal justice system’s
revolving door and eventually ended-up in an adult penitentiary.
All of the
above is recounted in distressing detail in Kids for Ca$h, a heartbreaking
expose directed by Robert May about two of the slimiest creeps to ever walk the
Earth. Conahan and Ciavarella’s shady shenanigans finally came to light after
the Juvenile Law Center took up the cause of the falsely accused.
But the
unrepentant jurists’ have never shown any remorse, with their stints in country
club federal prisons amounting to a slap on the wrist, given the thousands of
lives they’ve ruined. We can only pray that a special room in Hell has been
reserved for these “scumbags,” as they were called on the steps of the
courthouse by the grieving mother of one of their innocent victims who had
committed suicide.
Excellent
(4 stars)
Rated PG-13
for profanity and mature themes
Running time: 102 minutes
Distributor: SenArt
Films
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