This movie tells the story of the "Kids For Cash" scandal from Pennsylvania where two judges were accused of improperly sentencing juveniles to a privately-owned detention center in return for cash payments from the owners of that facility. The reality is a little more nuanced than that. There's no proof offered that the judges were getting kickbacks specifically for sentencing kids. More they were bribed to force the shutdown of the state facility (which, from all sounds of it, NEEDED to be shut down) and guaranteeing they would sentence kids to the private facility. The two judges split $2.2m for their disgusting actions. The movie tells that story and also dives into the details of some particularly egregious miscarriages of justice. There's the girl* who was sentenced to jail for creating a fake/satire Myspace page of her vice principal. There's the kid who served *5 years* for buying (supposedly unknowingly) a stolen moped. There's the girl who served 6 years for getting into a fight in school. And on and on and on. In each case, they were essentially tricked into not having legal counsel present. Amazingly, both judges for some reason consented to participate in the documentary, with neither coming off particularly well. This is just a truly awful story and the movie tells it well. It's horrifying what the system did to thousands of kids. The only good news is that both judges are in prison for a long time. Excellent documentary - 9/10.
* - The Myspace girl and the daughter of one of the judges are now somehow friends and are actually trying to work together on juvenile justice issues. Go figure.
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