Judge Ciavarella Essay

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The American Justice system from its earliest days has always been based off the concept that every individual no matter his or her age, gender, religion, or background is entitled to a fair shot at justice. It is the job of the elected officials who hold power in our justice system to maintain the fairness, equality, and integrity of the great government system that is the American Judicial system. In recent years, it can be perceived that the original mission of the judicial system, serving the people, keeping them safe, providing them with justice and rehabilitating the individuals that have wronged our country and society, has been lost on many. Money is the motivation for so many people and things in our modern society, so it should be …show more content…
Ciavarella was the ringmaster behind one of the biggest prison scandals in recent years. Ciavarella was said to have received more than $ 2,600,000 of secret income from a series of deals with the developers of a privately run, for-profit juvenile detention center (Temple University of the Commonwealth, 2012). “The goal of juvenile court has always been rehabilitation, but it was a revolving door of punishment and incarceration under former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella” (Kalinowski, 2014, p.1), who was denying juveniles the right to an attorney and without proper trial or representation he was sending them away; away from their family, friends, school, and the life that they were trying to build as you adults. In so many ways he was ruining young lives. In an interview in the documentary Kids for Cash Ciavarella claimed that he was “only doing what he believed was in the best interest of the individuals”(Weekley, 2013), and that he was trying to give theses guidance and the rehabilitation that he thought they lacked. However the thing that Ciavarella did not address were what theses individuals were being put away for, such minor infractions that most people would never imagine would require time in a correctional

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