Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/pennsylvania/)
Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history.
E had called to give a heads up.
“I may not be in contact for a few weeks,” he said. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) was transferring people from his prison, SCI Rockview in Bellefonte, Pa., to other prisons throughout the state.
Twin decisions last week in Pennsylvania, one from the governor’s office and the other from the courts, have left incarcerated youth in a state of limbo.
Very recently, Brenda “Sonny” Baker died of cancer. It was a coup de grace many of us incarcerated women at the State Correctional Institution in Muncy, Pa., did not see coming — in fact, few of us even knew the severity of her illness. Brenda bravely kept the grisly details under wraps so that she could put on a courageous front for the women she was serving time with; sparing herself from what she deemed to be unnecessary pity and attention.
The first time Danny Peters, 55, walked around Community Correction Center II, a halfway house in Philadelphia, he felt he’d been there before.
Steven Cave’s transformation happened in spite of a system that calls itself correctional but instead, he says, perpetuated his worst traumas, beliefs and behaviors. He entered that system in the state that has sentenced the most minors to life without parole, and where solitary confinement was a favorite method of punishment. In 2013, the Department of Justice found the state’s use of it in several facilities was unconstitutional.
Several years ago I wrote an opinion column about Marie Scott, a 19-year-old woman sentenced to life without parole in 1973 by the criminal justice system in Philadelphia.
Today, her co-defendant remains in prison waiting for his parole date. Leroy Saxton was 16 years old when he shot their victim to death.
In today’s world, having access to your vital records (birth certificate, Social Security card, state ID card) is, in fact, vital. The consequences system-involved youth experience by not having these essential records include potential housing instability, the inability to pursue certain educational opportunities and financial aid, and lack of access to public benefits. Not having identification can also be a barrier to employment. This is the situation Bruce Morgan, Juvenile Law Center’s youth advocate alum, faced.
While the man behind the landmark decision that ended mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles waits for a new sentence, other inmates given the same term are getting a shot at eventual freedom.
Advocates for juvenile justice say a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling issued Wednesday that will preclude hundreds of juvenile lifers from seeking new sentencing hearings is blatantly unfair.