This isn't mental health related but it's a story despicable enough that I had to put it here. As if the Philly area didn't have enough murders and stuff going on, we've got judges who would rather get rich than be concerned with children's welfare.
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to
accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention center
in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers
long sentences.
When someone is sent to a detention center, the company running the
facility receives money from the county government to defray the cost
of incarceration. So as more children were sentenced to the detention
center, PA Childcare and Western PA Childcare received more money from
the government, prosecutors said.
–snip–
One 17-year-old boy was sentenced to three months' detention for being in the company of another minor caught shoplifting.
Others were given similar sentences for "simple assault" resulting
from a schoolyard scuffle that would normally draw a warning, a
spokeswoman for the Juvenile Law Center said.
The Constitution guarantees the right to legal representation in
U.S. courts. But many of the juveniles appeared before Ciavarella
without an attorney because they were told by the probation service
that their minor offenses didn't require one.
depression introspection 