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Fantastic!

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I concur with the Judge on this. Not guilty of cash for kids. It appears from this documentary that there were no ongoing payments for keeping the facilities full. The Judge had a reputation of sending juveniles down (prior to the decision to close the original facility).Guilty of bribery and corruption yes. Guilty of robbing the juveniles of their right to representation, but that was not on the charge sheet.The judge does describe an incident in his youth where he said his father clobbered him for attempting to steal a car. Would you rather get punched in the mouth or be sent to lock-up? That is what I would like to ask that creep. The problem lies with the system. Two million children arrested each year; 95% are for non violent crimes. This reflects the adult prison population in the USA which has the highest rate of incarceration in the world and more prisoners than the rest of the world combined. Many of these prisons are privately owned slave plantations. The justice system is corrupted by prison for profit. The parole system ensures a rapid recycling of ex cons back into the system and more profits for prison owners (like Bill Gates) The USA is a corrupted violent society. It's collapse is imminent. The facts at the end of the documentary are a sad indictment of the US and it's propensity to violence

Kids for Cash is a documentary that shows the horrific miss sentencing of several young American kids as a ploy for the judges receiving cash in hand by sending these kids to private detention centres. Throughout the documentary you can't help but feel for these kids who have had upwards of seven years of their life thrown away due to greed and selfishness of the authority figures. Though the documentary travels on both sides of the fence (between the judges fault and not the judges fault) the bulk of the film views the head judge as this overly conservative man who has only his own interests in hand. One great documentary and never gets boring. Though the documentary will polarise views of the situation, anyone who is interested in this case will be glad they had watched this gem.

This gripping and mind blowing documentary is one of the most powerful films I've seen in a long time. I have to admit I was so infuriated by this film that I found my stomach roiling and my blood pressure rising throughout.It mainly focuses on 2 Luzerne County, Pa. Juvenile Court Judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, with more emphasis on Ciavarella. He ran for office initially on an anti-crime platform, and from what the movie describes once in office ran what seemed like a "kangaroo court", with juvenile cases before him sometimes lasting less than 2 minutes before sending them off to detention centers. Once this occurred the parents of these teens would lose their parental rights immediately, and the county or state would become their legal guardians. Apparently, there were deceptive tactics used where many parents were intimidated or deceived into signing waivers of attorney before entering Judge Ciavarella's courtroom. Some of these juveniles would end up spending years in detention centers for minor offenses, as a result leading to severe if not tragic consequences for all concerned.Ciavarella dished out these judgments, per the film, in a most arbitrary and dictatorial manner, but as it turns out he comes across as being the ultimate hypocrite, fully in denial. You see he was receiving money from the very detention centers he was ending these teens to, amounting to millions of dollars, plus not declaring this money on ethics or income tax filings.Later, Ciavarella along with Conahan accepted millions more dollars for what they described as a 'finder's fee" for helping to get the funding and construction for a new Juvenile Detention Center, and, of course, not declaring that money either. Here's a judge asking the head of the construction company offering the fee--"Is this legal"--give me a break! You just shake your head in disbelief! I won't go into more details here, as I don't want this review to be too lengthy, but let's just say justice was eventually served regarding these two judges. The outburst of a distraught mother on the steps of the courthouse was one of the most electrifying and heart-rending scenes I've seen on screen in a long time.In summary, I thought this documentary, directed by Robert May, tried to present as fair a picture as possible regarding all these events. Also, it tried to point out the horrible systemic failures of these problems in our country, whereas the leadership to tackle the juvenile justice system seems sorely lacking. Finally, I thought the movie was very well researched and edited, and came across as a gripping piece of cinema.

This is a beautifully made film about the huge judicial scandal that became known as "kids for cash." Basically, two judges in Pennsylvania secretly received millions of dollars from the owners of a for-profit prison for juveniles in their jurisdiction, while at the same time pulling strings to give the prison a monopoly on juvenile detentions and (in the case of one of the judges) sentencing hundreds (literally, hundreds) of juveniles to years of incarceration in the same prison, without due process and often for truly minor misbehavior.The documentary tells its story through interviews, news footage, and a limited number of title cards. There is no narrator, and the voice(s) of the interviewer(s) are not heard. The focus is on five of the hundreds of teenagers who were imprisoned in this scam: Charlie Balasavage, Justin Bodnar, Hillary Transue, Edward Kenzakoski, and Amanda Lorah. The interviews with the victims are heartbreaking. We also hear from the two judges (Ciavarella and Conahan), who allowed themselves to be interviewed for the film while the federal cases against them were pending. In some ways, this footage, while infuriating to watch, was the most interesting aspect of the film. Among the other interviewees are Terrie Morgan, the reporter who mainly covered the scandal for the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (and who serves as a de facto narrator), and Marsha Levick and Robert Schwartz, two attorneys with the non-profit Juvenile Law Center who worked to have the cases affected by the scandal vacated.The events covered here present dangerously rich material for a filmmaker. Should the story be about money? About power? About the juvenile justice system in general? The one weakness of the film is that it moves around among all of these themes without clearly digging into any of them. The opening and closing title sequences suggest that the third, broadest theme is the focus. But if so, why use the damage caused by two judges who were clearly corrupt as the vehicle?Despite that flaw, the film deserves 8 stars for its excellent production values and, most of all, the powerful interview footage, which brings home the effects the scam has had on so many lives.