Educational Law Training – Luzerne County (August 9)

The MHAPA affiliate in Northeastern PA, The Advocacy Alliance continues its efforts to offer positive solution based responses to the Luzerne County Scandal. On August 9, as follow-up to a successful education law and rights training offered earlier this spring, they are offering a full day and evening of training focused on school discipline and the behavioral support needs and rights of students.  The information will focus on alternatives to Zero Tolerance policies, which have been found to be ineffective in promoting safe school climates and good student outcomes. More information about this full-day session is available here.

State Response to Commission Recommendations

State agencies and the PA Legislature are currently reviewing the PA Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice Report, and evaluating which recommendations should be implemented, as well as how and when and what the funding needs will be. Officials will have to look carefully at local, state, and federal resources available to help make the changes that the report identified as critical to keeping such a tragedy from happening again.

A Community Shaken

In the May 2010 edition of Independent Magazine (Northeastern PA), Joe Moskovitz and Elizabeth Matin write about “A Community Shaken,” in which they look at the ongoing aftermath of the discovery of the juvenile justice abuses and corruption in Luzerne County.

They interview PA Senator Lisa Baker for her reactions to the recent release of the report from the Interbranch Commission.  Senator Baker, who represents the NE region, including Luzerne County, has publicly led the response to this county’s juvenile justice scandal.  She reflects on how she personally felt about the events. “As a parent you sit there and think, ‘What would I have done, how would I have felt, how would I have reacted?’… the sense of powerlessness and an overwhelming sense of thinking that perhaps the system was there to teach their child a lesson or help them get the right kind of counseling or treatment, as opposed to just being taken away in shackles.”

Her response to NEPA reporter’s question “Where do we go from here?” spoke to the current local distrust of government in the scandal’s aftermath.   “Every new revelation of wrongdoing or misdeed by someone who is elected to uphold the public trust undermines the system. How do you restore that trust? I grew up in the post-Watergate era, post-indictment of Congressman Flood. You have a lot of parallels to that period when there was great distrust in government. Restoring that, like what happened in the juvenile justice system, is going to take time and people stepping forward who are open to look forward, who are open to look for transparency– people who can lead by the right example. People want to see that you are doing what you said; you need to demonstrate that. Only when they can see that will they then believe in people who are engaged and involved for the betterment of their community.”

Federal Investigation Continues to Reveal Corruption Details

While state and local officials and concerned citizens are trying to rectify the harm that has occurred, news agencies in northeastern PA continue to report more layers of corruption and deceit, as the federal investigation moves forward. In May, leading up the trials of officials involved in the scandal, more information about the “kids for cash” dealings were released. The Times Leader reports that the two judges strong-armed juvenile probation officers to place more children in PA Child Care, a facility that was secretly giving the judges money for each child sent there. The government’s information cites a meeting in February 2003 when probation officers were brought to Judge Ciavarella’s office and spoke by phone with Judge Conahan. “Michael Conahan expressed displeasure with delays in admissions of juvenile offenders to PA Child Care. Thereafter weekly reports were often provided to Mark Ciavarella indicating the number of beds utilized at PA Child Care,” a federal document says.