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Kids For Cash Documentary Analysis

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Draft Paper In the documentary film, “Kids for Cash”, Robert May shows his audience the horrors of the Luzerne County justice system. He uses imagery, appeals to logos and pathos, personal experiences and anecdotes to support his claim. Robert May made this documentary to show the world that the government needs to make sure that even minors have a fair trial and justice before being incarcerated. In a scandal, named “Kids for Cash” by the press and reporters, Judge Ciavarella sentenced thousands of kids to two private juvenile facilities for payment. After the briefest of hearings, - the average length was four minutes – the kids were dispatched to the detention centers in which the judges had financial interests (source 4, page 2). Upon …show more content…

The privatization of youth confinement facilities is now widespread in the United States; almost half of the youth facilities in the country are privately operated. While many of these private facilities are owned or operated by non-profits, we focus this policy platform on for-profit facilities, which pose a unique and significant risk to youth (http://www.njjn.org/our-work/confining-youth-for-profit--policy-platform). Robert May’s documentary sheds a little light on the problem with the justice system and shows that it might be something that the United States wants to fix before it becomes a problem. He claims that minors need a justice system that protects their rights as well as they protect adult’s rights. Ciavarella was convicted in 2011 of racketeering and other charges, sentenced to 28 years in prison; of the 39 charges against him, Ciavarella was guilty for 12. Conahan, the one who oversaw the scam, pleaded guilty to racketeering and was sentenced to more than 17 years behind bars. Hilary graduated college and wants to become an English teacher for at-risk kids. The victims and their families have also won millions in judgements from Mericle and Powell’s

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Critical Reflection Paper In class we watched a video called “Kids for Cash.” It is a documentary on the juvenile system focusing particularly on one judge, his name is Mark Ciavarella. This documentary starts off in Luzerne, Pennsylvania in 1995. Mark Ciavarella was a Juvenile Court Judge.

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However, when emphasizing on the main theme of the devastation felt by the victims during the incarceration of the kids in the “kids for cash” scandal, the author juxtaposes repeatedly the victimized “good kids” with the “bad kids” that awaited them in the juvenile detention centers. Ecenbarger wrote that some girls were tough at the camp and were teenagers from the inner city convicted for violent crimes. However, others were also in the detention camp for stealing the credit cards of the fathers to purchase clothes and for bringing pocket knives unintentionally to school (Ecenbarger, 2012, p.9). Similarly, the author wrote that “there was no sinister gang that inspired Paige who is fifteen years old to throw a sandal to her mother when they had an argument…Paige did not understand why she was being interned at the detention camp with

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507 Words | 3 Pages

In this documentary kids behind bars the goals that are being achieved by institutions designed for youth juveniles are discipline, responsibilities, able to function in society, anger management, correct character deficiencies, drug and alcohol counseling. In Texas Paul was not able to function in society. Paul was use drugs and missing curfew. He was sent to a county boot camp for six months. Another Paul from England who is just 12 years old, got caught with the police for stealing golf clubs and a pack of Pokemon cards.

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Not only does Berstein call for an overall reform of this nation’s juvenile prisons, she goes as far as saying the practice of locking up youth is in need of a “more profound than incremental and partial reform” (13). The fact that Bernstein outlines the numerous failed strategies and goals of this practice with her compelling use of studies and statistics is enough to promote an audience to reject the practice of locking up youth. The statistic she shares that “four out of five juvenile parolees [will be] back behind bars within three years of release” as well as the studies she conducted on numerous instances when a guards abuse of power lead to the death of a child work to further prove her point: being that “institution[s] as intrinsically destructive as the juvenile prison” have no place in a modern society (13, 83). Bernstein refutes this false sense effectiveness further by sharing her own ideas on what she believes works as a much more humane solution to rehabilitating

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Hermiller adds another nonfiction story about a 14 year old boy named Anotonio who also got stepped on by the juvenile justice system. “Despite his difficult background and the absence of any significant criminal history, the judge sent him to an overcrowded, dangerous adult prison at the age of 14. Antonio became the youngest person in the United States to die in prison for a crime in which no one was physically injured,” Hermiller states. This highlights yet another personal experience of a young child who was treated unfairly and as an adult. Both these stories that Hermiller added to her multigenre piece create firsthand examples to support her argument on the injustice of this

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Video Discussion 5 The United States grapples with a troubling reality: it incarcerates more children than any other developed country. Despite comprising only 4% of the global population, the US accounts for a staggering 22% of the world's prison population. These statistics paint a grim picture of a justice system in need of reform, particularly concerning its treatment of juvenile offenders. Though he came out a changed man, Jeff Wallace's journey through the juvenile justice system shows how much change is needed within the system.

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The federal government’s “War on Crime” by the Johnson administration in the 60s made way for tougher law enforcement and surveillance (Hinton, 2015). However, with this came the separation of children and adults in the criminal justice system; then the separation of juvenile delinquents from status offenders. As mentioned, status offenders are different from juvenile delinquents because they had broken rules which apply to only children. Meanwhile, juvenile delinquents are youths under the age of 18, who committed offenses that would be punishable to adults as well. By the late 1960s, there became a growing concern that juveniles involved in the court-based status-offense system, were not getting their best interests met (Shubik & Kendall, 2007).

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Adam Valneuzela Mrs. Smith English 1A 29 March 2023 Children Don’t Belong in Adult Correctional Facilities Children are suffering. There are children in adult correctional facilities such as prisons. There are high chances of those children getting abused, raped, and taken advantage of. These children are suffering from trauma and possibly have PTSD of some sort from where they had come from.

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The Prison Kids: Juvenile Justice in America documentary describes juveniles and how our justice system handles that kind of problem. Juveniles are different from adults, both physically and mentally, so why should they be treated like adults? Quite a few years ago, the juveniles system was created not to punish, but to rehabilitate. The juvenile system was purposely different from the adult system so that children are held responsible for their actions and that the system put them through some kind of rehabilitation program so that later, they can live an ordinary life. However, this documentary shows how children each year are go through a trial like adults and are sentenced and incarcerated just like adults do.

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637 Words | 3 Pages

There are many victims of unfortunate circumstances in the world today, yet some of these results could have been easily avoided. In the novel, Just Mercy, the author Bryan Stevenson addresses many cases in which children under the age of 18 are incarcerated within the adult criminal justice system. By treating children as adults in the criminal justice system their innocence and undeveloped person, become criminalized. These children become dehumanized and only viewed as full-fledged criminals and as a result society offers no chance sympathy towards them. Stevenson argues that children tried as adults have become damaged and traumatized by this system of injustice.

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Within the urban communities, negative perceptions are magnified. Adolescents are more prone to be a product of their environment, especially those whose parents are incarcerated. Because of this trend adolescents are being incarcerated at an alarming rate and sentenced to adult facilities. Lambie & Randall (2013) states, the United States have imposed harsher penalties on serious young offenders, and have consequently increased rates of incarcerated youth and made it easier for youth to be treated and incarcerated as adults within the justice

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Many find that it wrong that the correctional facilities of the country should benefit from prisoners and their families. One prison in Pennsylvania is known to have made a deal with a Judge that was sentenced to 17 years for unlawfully convicting Juveniles to a private facility in a “cash for kids” scandal. (Magee, Brian) Deals this egregious are obvious and are quickly reported or investigated, but had the judge increased sentence durations by a small percentage, odds are no one would be the wiser. Private companies have only one goal: profit.

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There are differences between a juvenile court and criminal court in the United States. The focus of the juvenile justice system is on rehabilitation, in hope of deterring the minor away from a life of crime so they will not commit a crime again as an adult. In contrast, the criminal justice system focuses on the punishment and often bases the sentencing outcome on the criminal history of the youth. In a study conducted, Butler (2011) showed that the participants’ experience with adult jails and prisons show that those facilities may instill fear but are otherwise emotionally—and often physically—dangerous for youth. Many of the adult prisoners, who were minors when they enter the adult institution, felt they were forced to “grow

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”(Ryan, 2) What has been brought to attention is, not only does the most government money go into incarceration, but a higher amount is funded in the process of incarcerating young Americans. As much money it cost to take care of young child is typically doubled when you are putting them in prison. A Lot of thought is put into the decision of incarcerated someone under the age of 18, an even bigger arrangement for a minor under 16. The Justice Policy reviews the comparisons of funding towards youth confinement centers versus public education cost “Thirty-three U.S. states and jurisdictions spend $100,000 or more annually to incarcerate a young person, and continue to generate outcomes that result in even greater costs.

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Annotated bibliography Childress, S. (2016, June 2). More States Consider Raising the Age for Juvenile Crime. Retrieved from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/more-states-consider-raising-the-age-for-juvenile-crime/ More states are considering to raising the age for juvenile crimes before being tried as adult because young offender's mental capacity. The idea is to cut the cost of incarcerate young offender in adult prison and ensure offenders to receive proper education and specialized care to change their behavior. Putting children in adult prison does not deter crime.

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