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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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Summary Of Kids For Cash By Mark Ciavarella

624 Words | 3 Pages

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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Ecenbarger's Kids For Cash: Victimless Reform

868 Words | 4 Pages

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

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610 Words | 3 Pages

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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1056 Words | 5 Pages

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1292 Words | 6 Pages

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383 Words | 2 Pages

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

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Mass Incarceration Literature Review

1728 Words | 7 Pages

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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955 Words | 4 Pages

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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849 Words | 4 Pages

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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1059 Words | 5 Pages

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1043 Words | 5 Pages

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