This post is about what kids for cash, the treatment of Brendan Dassey as shown in Making a Murderer, and the war on drugs have in common.
Kids for cash
Briefly, the kids for cash scandal involved Wilkes-Barre, PA Judge Mark Ciavarella, who gave kids long sentences at youth detention centers for very minor crimes. He had a financial relationship with two of these centers, which he did not disclose. So it appeared that he was profiting from giving kids harsh sentences. Pretty scandalous.
There is a documentary about this titled Kids for Cash. The documentary was not what I expected. What it shows is that Ciavarella wanted his identity to be about how tough on kids he was. He was campaigning on the idea that he wouldn’t give kids a second chance. If they got in trouble at school he would give them the toughest punishment allowable by law. He was elected. He then followed through on his campaign promises. He ended up getting re-elected. These are 10 year terms. So he was Judge for 10 years and citizens chose to re-elect him. For much of his time as Judge, he was not receiving kickbacks from youth detention centers. He campaigned as a tough-on-crime judge. He was elected as a tough-on-crime judge. He was giving out harsh sentences to kids who got in trouble at school, just like he said he would.
So it seems to me that he basically gave the people what they wanted, in terms of how he dealt with teens who got into trouble. Had he also not been getting kickbacks for it, would the public have really cared about these harsh sentences? They didn’t seem to when they voted for him and re-elected him.
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