Judges receiving kickbacks

POLITICS - Yesterday judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and colleague Michael T. Conahan appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pennsylvania to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send children and teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.

With Conahan serving as president judge in control of the budget and Ciavarella overseeing the juvenile courts, they set the kickback scheme in motion in December 2002, the authorities said. Conahan, 56, secured contracts for the two centers to house juvenile offenders, Ciavarella, 58, was the one who carried out the sentencing to keep the centers filled. Detention centers and prisons in the United States is big business and the industry makes billions of dollars per year.

The case has shocked the United States law community and opened up questions as to whether other judges are involved in prison kickbacks.

More than 80 angry parents who had their children sentenced unnecessarily due to minor crimes like spoofing their principal on MySpace, sharing mp3s or schoolboy fighting now want a class-action lawsuit and a public inquiry into prison kickbacks.