Jailing kids is a proud American tradition

Thomas Frank gets his Jonathan Swift on regarding the juvenile detention kickback scandal in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

Privatizing bits of the prison industry was a step in the right direction, but what we didn’t have — until recently — were proper instruments for incentivizing the judiciary. That’s what the “kids for cash” judges were apparently experimenting with.

Today the do-gooders revile those efforts as “kickbacks,” but before long we will see them as legitimate tools of justice. Our laws governing lobbying and campaign contributions have struck the right balance between the wishes of the people and those of private industry, so why are we so quick to doubt that the same great results can be achieved by putting the government’s justice-dealing branch on the same market-based course?

I am rarely as outraged as I was upon hearing about the scandal in Luzerne County; I admire Frank’s ability to channel his outrage into something this brilliant and cutting.