Kids for Cash

Kids for Cash is a neat documentary covering the unfolding of the "Kids for Cash" scandal in Luzern country, PA, where two judges sent more than two thousand children to a juvenile detention center while getting paybacks from the private operation of the same facility.

The filmmakers had personal access to both accused judges, who gave lengthy interviews on camera. However, the producers didn't let that fact cloud their views on the whole affair as it is common in such productions. Instead, we have several interviews with young victims of the scheme and their parents.

What is not so good about the movie are is the parallelism of the stories of victims they follow. The cut points on the narratives look hastily put together instead of carefully chosen to permeate the viewer to the individuality and commonality of each story.

At the end, viewers are left with the impression of two corrupt men who genuinely think they weren't doing anything wrong other than some minor procedural violations. Although not the main theme of the documentary, one is left to wonder how horrendously normalized it had become to just take "bad kids" away from school and send them to correctional facilities.

Kids for Cash is a documentary that shows the horrific miss sentencing of several young American kids as a ploy for the judges receiving cash in hand by sending these kids to private detention centres. Throughout the documentary you can't help but feel for these kids who have had upwards of seven years of their life thrown away due to greed and selfishness of the authority figures. Though the documentary travels on both sides of the fence (between the judges fault and not the judges fault) the bulk of the film views the head judge as this overly conservative man who has only his own interests in hand.

One great documentary and never gets boring. Though the documentary will polarise views of the situation, anyone who is interested in this case will be glad they had watched this gem.

I concur with the Judge on this. Not guilty of cash for kids.

It appears from this documentary that there were no ongoing payments for keeping the facilities full. The Judge had a reputation of sending juveniles down (prior to the decision to close the original facility).

Guilty of bribery and corruption yes. Guilty of robbing the juveniles of their right to representation, but that was not on the charge sheet.

The judge does describe an incident in his youth where he said his father clobbered him for attempting to steal a car. Would you rather get punched in the mouth or be sent to lock-up? That is what I would like to ask that creep.

The problem lies with the system. Two million children arrested each year; 95% are for non violent crimes. This reflects the adult prison population in the USA which has the highest rate of incarceration in the world and more prisoners than the rest of the world combined.

Many of these prisons are privately owned slave plantations. The justice system is corrupted by prison for profit.

The parole system ensures a rapid recycling of ex cons back into the system and more profits for prison owners (like Bill Gates)

The USA is a corrupted violent society. It's collapse is imminent.

The facts at the end of the documentary are a sad indictment of the US and it's propensity to violence

Great documentary about the Kids for Cash scandal. Just shows us how corrupt everyone really is in this world.

having just watched this doc i am left feeling that it could have been more complete.

As others have pointed out - no mention of the Prison/Detention Centre for profit angle, which caused the issue in the first place. No mention on what happened to the owner of the facility who paid them the 'finder's fee'.

I guess that would have probably dragged the running time too long, and the topic has been covered elsewhere already (most notably in my opinion in the excellent "The house i live in"). But still a couple of minutes to explain the root cause (apart from greed) would have helped.

Also - no real scientific explanation on the reason why kids should not be treated as adults to begin with. And no explanation why the USA did not sign the UN Charter?

Having said that - it tried to be a well balanced piece - but the most serious flaw to me was the failure to mention the yacht and luxury condos the 2 judges bought with the money. And how they channeled the funds through various accounts and companies so that it would be well hidden. I had to dig this bit of information up myself after viewing the doc. This would negate the small part of me that actually still had some sympathy for judge Ciavarella after his tearful passage at the end of the documentary.

He did not just 'pay some debts and provide for his kids'.

Plain greed.