During the post-Columbine early 2000s, as the United States experienced a heightened fear of violent teenagers, a group of white men in Pennsylvania—two judges (Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan), a real estate developer (Robert Mericle), and an attorney (Robert Powell)—established a for-profit juvenile detention center. Appallingly, the men funneled large amounts of money from the detention center into their personal bank accounts in what has since become known as the Kids for Cash scandal. To keep the prisons fully occupied for maximum personal financial benefit, Ciavarella adopted a zero-tolerance approach in the courtroom, verbally assaulting juvenile defendants as he handed down harsh sentences for minor infractions. Children expecting to receive community service were stunned to be carted away in shackles. This gripping account documents attempts by whistleblowers and others to draw attention to this unconscionable practice while also acknowledging the many court workers and other system staff who were complicit. Descriptions of the state judicial system’s inability to respond to complaints, and the judges’ power to silence detractors time and again, are horrifying; a case against the men gained traction only once the FBI got involved. Heartbreaking stories and interviews with several of the affected young people, now in their 20s and 30s, add to the power of the narrative: Incarceration ruined many of their lives and devastated their families (who were billed for the time their children were incarcerated) both emotionally and financially.

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Here is the explosive story of the Kids for Cash scandal in Pennsylvania, a judicial justice miscarriage that sent more than 2,500 children and teens to a for-profit detention center while two judges lined their pockets with cash, as told by Candy J. Cooper, an award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist.

In the early 2000s, Judge Mark Ciavarella and Judge Michael Conahan of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania were known as no-nonsense judges. Juveniles who showed up in their courtrooms faced harsh words and even harsher sentencing. In the post-Columbine era, many people believed that was just what the county needed to ensure its children and teens stayed on the straight and narrow path. But as more and more children faced shocking sentences for seemingly benign crimes, and a newly built for-profit detention center filled up further and further, a sinister pattern of abuses and bribery emerged. Through extensive research and original reporting leading into contemporary times, award-winning journalist Candy J. Cooper tells the story of a scandal that the Juvenile Law Center calls “one of the largest and most serious violations of children’s rights in the history of the American legal system.”