![]() Juvenile Law Center is also a resource for other legal advocacy groups across the nation. ![]() Juvenile Law Center is the oldest national, non-profit, public interest law firm to advance and protect the rights and well-being of children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Juvenile Law Center will continue to work closely with policymakers, lawmakers and other juvenile justice and court officials to make sure that what happened to the children and families of Luzerne County is never again repeated in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.įor the history of the "kids-for-cash" scandal, visit our Luzerne page. Juvenile Law Center made recommendations for reform in early 2010 and the Interbranch Commission on Juvenile Justice issued recommendations last May. More than two years after the criminal conspiracy came to light, no reforms have been finalized to protect the Constitutional rights of Pennsylvania’s children. The children and families of Luzerne County have seen today that the rule of law matters, and that even a person who has worn a judge’s robe must pay the piper. Preventing it from re-occurring elsewhere in the state is another matter. Mark Ciavarella had his day in court, said Robert Schwartz, Juvenile Law Center’s Executive Director. The final step to justice for Luzerne County’s families will come at the conclusion of the federal civil rights case against Ciavarella, Conahan and their co-conspirators. This guilty conviction follows the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s 2009 vacatur and expungement of the delinquency adjudications of all of the children who were victims of Ciavarella’s judicial misconduct. His victims will finally have an opportunity to speak, a right he routinely denied so many of them in his courtroom. Juvenile Law Center hopes that the full impact of Mark Ciavarella’s actions will become painfully clear when he is sentenced. The trajectory of these children’s lives has been forever altered. In some heartbreaking cases, the opportunity to heal ended before it could even begin – at least two families were destroyed by suicide. Mark Ciavarella’s actions crushed the dreams of so many families. The irony is not lost on the youth and families whose civil rights were trampled, and this verdict is bittersweet. Juvenile Law Center 1315 Walnut Street, 4th Floor Philadelphia, PA 19107 21 National Youth Employment Coalition 1836 Jefferson Place, N.W. ![]() Today, after enjoying two years of due process, access to expert counsel, and all the rights afforded by the Constitution in a court of law, Mark Ciavarella has been found guilty. It has been more than three years since Juvenile Law Center filed its King’s Bench petition with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking for intervention. “The breadth and depth of the corruption, criminality and disregard of children’s most fundamental constitutional rights is staggering,” said Marsha Levick, Chief Legal Counsel at Juvenile Law Center. history, jarring our trust in the courts and scarring the lives of thousands of children. What transpired in Mark Ciavarella’s courtroom has been recognized worldwide as the most egregious judicial scandal in U.S. “The children and families of Luzerne County have seen today that the rule of law matters, and that even a person who has worn a judge’s robe must pay the piper.” “Mark Ciavarella had his day in court,” said Robert Schwartz, Juvenile Law Center’s Executive Director. Appendixes include: Mental Health/Juvenile Justice Joint Policy Statement and a sample request for proposal (RFP)-aftercare pilot counties entitled “Development of Comprehensive Model Aftercare Approaches”.Today’s guilty verdict is but one more step in the quest to secure justice for the children and families in Luzerne County. The JJDPC and Models for Change supported many separate lanes on the highway of reform, but some of those lanes merged to create a smoother, faster pathway to common goals.” This publication is composed of five chapters: introduction-setting the stage Pennsylvania’s juvenile justice system the partnership targets reform reflections on the JJDP-MacArthur partnership and conclusion-a partnership creates the future. It shows how the Foundation identified and collaborated with a key state agency to improve Pennsylvania's juvenile justice system. Riya Saha Shah is a Staff Attorney at Juvenile Law Center. Jennifer Pokempner is a Supervising Attorney at Juvenile Law Center. This monograph highlights some of the ways that Pennsylvania's SAG combined people, vision and dollars with those of Models for Change. Schwartz INTRODUCTION Youth involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems are among the most vulnerable children in society. MacArthur Foundation and the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Committee (JJDPC), Pennsylvania's state advisory group (SAG). “At the heart of the Models for Change story in Pennsylvania is the partnership between the John D.
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