Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Monkeywess This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

Clarissa Mora The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Mister P 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

mhendroff having just watched this doc i am left feeling that it could have been more complete.As others have pointed out - no mention of the Prison/Detention Centre for profit angle, which caused the issue in the first place. No mention on what happened to the owner of the facility who paid them the 'finder's fee'.I guess that would have probably dragged the running time too long, and the topic has been covered elsewhere already (most notably in my opinion in the excellent "The house i live in"). But still a couple of minutes to explain the root cause (apart from greed) would have helped.Also - no real scientific explanation on the reason why kids should not be treated as adults to begin with. And no explanation why the USA did not sign the UN Charter? Having said that - it tried to be a well balanced piece - but the most serious flaw to me was the failure to mention the yacht and luxury condos the 2 judges bought with the money. And how they channeled the funds through various accounts and companies so that it would be well hidden. I had to dig this bit of information up myself after viewing the doc. This would negate the small part of me that actually still had some sympathy for judge Ciavarella after his tearful passage at the end of the documentary. He did not just 'pay some debts and provide for his kids'. Plain greed.

zippyflynn2 Take a good look at this film and be prepared to be shocked and angry. Very shocked and very angry, that is, if you believe in decency and justice. It's an intimate look at two judges who took bribes to send children to jail, often for non-existent crimes or for petty, relatively insignificant things kids do because they're kids. Some of these children committed suicide, the rest all had their lives ruined. And the sick punchline? The crooked judges don't see what they did as wrong but rather just "administrative decisions". Sure, the judges went to jail but I'm sure they just see that as an "administrative decision" as well. Look at them closely. They're faces of the banality of evil. Much like the Nazis operating the death camps during WWII, they justify their actions as merely methods of the time. One of the criminals portrayed, the pompously righteous Judge Ciavarella pretended to be a "law and order" judge when in fact he was a greedy sociopath, not much different than the death camp dentists who ripped the gold teeth from Jews for joyful profit.But whatever you do, don't see this as an isolated incident that has been taken care of. It still exists today. Most Americans are oblivious to the Prisons for Profit system, the same system that was giving huge kickbacks to these judges to incarcerate children for greed. The real sick thing about this documentary? The Prisons for Profit not only still exist, they're bigger than ever. And the terrible punchline to this story? You likely won't ever hear about judges being arrested for getting kickbacks for sentencing children to jail anymore. Now they can legally own stock and have other financial interests in this Prisons for Profit system that is flourishing. The same prisons they sentence "offenders" to serve long, profitable sentences. The fastest growth industry in the last 30 years in America. And most Americans are still oblivious to it. Your legal system has been sold, America and the blood, sweat, tears, and lives of your children and others who shouldn't be jailed will continue to line the pockets of evil people like these two judges who only saw children as a way to make money, caring not for their ruined - and ended - lives.Watch this and get angry, very angry. And start talking about the evil that is destroying what used to be a somewhat fair legal system. That is, if you care at all about justice and decency. And your country. And your fellow men, women and children.

eurograd Kids for Cash is a neat documentary covering the unfolding of the "Kids for Cash" scandal in Luzern country, PA, where two judges sent more than two thousand children to a juvenile detention center while getting paybacks from the private operation of the same facility.The filmmakers had personal access to both accused judges, who gave lengthy interviews on camera. However, the producers didn't let that fact cloud their views on the whole affair as it is common in such productions. Instead, we have several interviews with young victims of the scheme and their parents.What is not so good about the movie are is the parallelism of the stories of victims they follow. The cut points on the narratives look hastily put together instead of carefully chosen to permeate the viewer to the individuality and commonality of each story. At the end, viewers are left with the impression of two corrupt men who genuinely think they weren't doing anything wrong other than some minor procedural violations. Although not the main theme of the documentary, one is left to wonder how horrendously normalized it had become to just take "bad kids" away from school and send them to correctional facilities.