Regular readers will recall previous posts on this blog about the epidemic of "private prisons" sweeping across the U.S. - the new business-of-choice for Dick Cheney, and former Attorney General (lol) Alberto Gonzales.

With little regulation, and even less oversight, private prisons have the luxury of not having to conform to the minimal standards of U.S. public prisons - like those fine prisons in California which are currently jammed to DOUBLE their capacity.

The other big advantage of running a private prison is that they are excellent sources of slave labour - which is where the REAL money is in this business. Today, I came across a story first out Friday, that two U.S. judges pleaded guilty to fraud for sentencing hundreds (thousands?) of innocent children to private detention centers, and then taking kick-backs from the owner of the detention centers. The person who owns the construction company who built the private prisons is the other primary co-conspirator, according to a law-suit filed on behalf of hundreds of children, and their families. The kick-backs totaled $2.6 million. In other words, this is a scam which was allowed to continue for a long time.

A quote on a Reuters report is even more troubling:

"Marsha Levick, chief counsel for the Juvenile Law Center, estimated that of approximately 5,000 juveniles who came before Ciavarella from 2003 and 2006, between 1,000 and 2,000 received excessively harsh detention sentences."

In this case, slave labour does not appear to be a motive, simply stuffing the newly-built detention centers to capacity by whatever means necessary and then getting fat on the fees paid by the county for incarceration.

In the two stories I saw on this, each used different examples. One story told of a 14 year-old girl jailed as a "terrorist" after getting into an argument on MySpace. In another case, a 17 year-old boy was incarcerated for three months for simply being "in the company" of a shop-lifter (not an "accessory").

This is just one more reason why Americans should be VERY concerned about the EXPLOSION in prison construction (everywhere but California - lol). The other question which Americans will NOT ask themselves is this: what sort of society is so biased in favour of incarcerating their own citizens that a THOUSAND INNOCENT children can be jailed over a period of YEARS - before anyone finally notices ???

Pa. judges sued in kickback scheme