Former Judge Mark Ciavarella leaves the federal courthouse in Scranton after proceedings in his 2011 trial on corruption charges.
Times Leader File Photo
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It may seem like ancient history, but the “kids for cash” scandal that made Luzerne County infamous gave us one lesson that should not be forgotten: We cannot afford to be complacent about our juvenile justice system.
The tragedy exposed a plague of dereliction, beginning with the fact that the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board had failed for years to investigate complaints about then-Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan — complaints that started in 2004.
For those who may have forgotten or never learned the details, Conahan and bench-mate Mark Ciavarella were charged with using their judicial authority to funnel juveniles into a for-profit facility while getting substantial payments from people involved with that facility. Though there were legal hiccups, Conahan ultimately made a plea agreement and Ciavarella was convicted in a federal trial. Guilty pleas to related charges were also entered by Attorney Robert Powell, a co-owner of the private facility in question, and by mega-developer Robert Mericle, who was involved in the facility construction.
But the aftermath continued for years. The state legislature created the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice in 2009 that investigated the many mistakes and issued a report and recommendations in 2010. The commission’s work, as well as other investigations (including by the Times Leader), exposed a juvenile justice system that had shortchanged children on multiple levels: Failure to assure they got appropriate legal representation during adjudication, lack of oversight of the facilities those deemed delinquent were sent to, and punishments that helped ruin the lives of the children rather than turning those lives around — to name a few.
Thousands of children had their juvenile records expunged. Court rules and state laws were changed. Massive civil suits were brought against the culprits, and settled — though the the testimony of plaintiffs years after the fact remained heartbreaking. In proceedings held in 2021, Mark Aguilar recounted his appearance before Ciavarella and the long-term impact of a harsh sentence with a damning summation:
“He took my whole childhood away,” Aguilar said, “all of it.”
We bring all this up because, as reported in Saturday’s paper, Gov. Josh Shapiro signed two bills into law that promise to bring further reform to the state’s juvenile justice system. One requires disposition review hearings at least every three months regarding child placement outside of their homes, and the other creates an expungement process for juvenile records that requires the Chief Juvenile Probation officer to notify courts when records are eligible for such expungement.
These newest reforms stem from the Juvenile Justice Task Force report of 2021. They address three of the task force’s 35 recommendations.
The fact that the task force came up with 35 recommendations more than a decade after Kids for Cash prompted intense scrutiny of the entire juvenile justice system may, at first blush, seem like a sign of ongoing failure. But a more optimistic interpretation may be the right one: Legislators and policy makers have learned their lesson.
The system failed back then not so much because it lacked appropriate safeguards, but because those safeguards were either given perfunctory attention or ignored completely. When it comes to the handling of children who enter the justice system, we can’t afford to assume enough has been done. Complacency is unacceptable. Assuring the system is fair and effective, evaluating and updating procedures must be an ongoing effort.
In juvenile justice, vigilance matters because everyone only gets one childhood.