Shackled

February 15, 2024
Grades 9-12 A corrupt youth justice system existed in Pennsylvania during the early 2000s. This system revolved around Mark Ciavarella, a maverick judge who imposed a brutal system of lengthy incarcerations for minor infractions (throwing a pillow at their mom) in hellish, for-profit detention centers that he partially owned. Ciavarella and his cohorts got away with unimaginable behavior for years, and investigative reporter Cooper provides accessible background information about coal-mining Pennsylvania and the blatant levels of institutional corruption that existed for decades. Hundreds of children and teens were forced to give up their right to a lawyer, went through mock trials, were incarcerated immediately, and were sent to ramshackle buildings to sleep on floors, starve, and be terrorized by older inmates. The action picks up during 2008 and an FBI investigation that led to much-needed reforms, too late for the scores of young people whose lives had been ruined. Their testimonies, and descriptions of the current restorative justice system, end the narrative. This story about peer victims will appeal to true-crime enthusiasts and socially conscious readers.

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February 15, 2024
A detailed examination of the origins and impacts of a juvenile justice scandal that rocked Pennsylvania from 1996 to 2009. Under the judicial tenure of Judge Mark Ciavarella, thousands of children in Pennsylvania's Luzerne County were shuttled into a for-profit youth prison that he had a hand in designing. Along with fellow judge Joe Conahan, personal injury lawyer Robert Powell, and commercial real estate developer Robert Mericle, Ciavarella orchestrated the imprisonment of misbehaving young people while profiting from their punishment. He followed a zero-tolerance policy, meting out the harshest sentences, no matter the crime. Under this judicial paradigm, Ciavarella funneled young people who entered his courtroom into Pennsylvania Child Care, the for-profit youth prison that was lining the conspirators' pockets. This clear and detailed account, which includes interviews with some of the victims, examines not only how this facility came into being and how its benefactors profited from the imprisonment of children but also how earlier events, such as the 1959 Knox Mine Disaster, paved the way for a culture of government corruption in Luzerne County and allowed the "cash for kids" scheme to happen. Well researched and concisely reported, this heart-wrenching story is presented in an easy-to-follow and appealing manner. Supporting images of various figures, places, and pieces of evidence provide thought-provoking breaks in the text that emphasize just how real this miscarriage of justice was. An informative and accessible exploration of a major prison crisis with direct relevance to youth. (author's note, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)

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April 1, 2024

Gr 7 Up-Cooper relates the story of two corrupt judges who received massive financial kickbacks for putting hundreds of juvenile offenders in jail for relatively minor offenses in Luzerne County, PA, from the late 1990s to 2008. She starts off with an informative chapter on the history of coal mining in the region and the corruption that grew out of that industry. Then, at a speedy pace, she outlines how the judges carried out their scheme. In addition to receiving payments for each youth jailed, the judges also fast-tracked the building of a new for-profit juvenile detention center with misleading paperwork and carried out significant nepotism in courthouse hiring. Ultimately, local and federal investigations led to their arrests and convictions in 2009. Defendants, as young as 11, were given lengthy sentences for benign offenses, such as smoking, marking up street signs, and minor fights, and were then subject to further incarceration for violating overly stringent parole requirements. Cooper concludes with an interesting discussion of the long-term harm done by the punitive juvenile detention system, including follow up on the adult lives of some of the victims, paralleled with a brief introduction to the benefits of the newer practice of restorative justice. VERDICT A highly readable and thought-provoking addition to true crime collections for teens.-Kati Doyle

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