Name: Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town That Looked Away - Hardcover
Brand: Books by splitShops
SKU: 9781662620133
Price: 19.99 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9781662620133

Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town That Looked Away - Hardcover

$19.99

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by Candy J. Cooper (Author)

2025 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist
CCBC Choices 2025
2025 NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies Book Winner
YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
The New York Public Library Best Books for Teens 2024

Here is the explosive story of the Kids for Cash scandal in Pennsylvania, a judicial justice miscarriage that sent more than 2,500 children and teens to a for-profit detention center while two judges lined their pockets with cash, as told by Candy J. Cooper, an award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist.

In the early 2000s, Judge Mark Ciavarella and Judge Michael Conahan of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania were known as no-nonsense judges. Juveniles who showed up in their courtrooms faced harsh words and even harsher sentencing. In the post-Columbine era, many people believed that was just what the county needed to ensure its children and teens stayed on the straight and narrow path. But as more and more children faced shocking sentences for seemingly benign crimes, and a newly built for-profit detention center filled up further and further, a sinister pattern of abuses and bribery emerged. Through extensive research and original reporting leading into contemporary times, award-winning journalist Candy J. Cooper tells the story of a scandal that the Juvenile Law Center calls "one of the largest and most serious violations of children's rights in the history of the American legal system."

Author Biography

Candy J. Cooper is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Selden Ring Award for Investigative Reporting. She has been a staff writer for four newspapers, including The Detroit Free Press and The San Francisco Examiner. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Columbia Journalism Review and The Chronicle of Higher Education, among other publications. She is the author of Poisoned Water: How The Citizens of Flint, Michigan Fought For Their Lives and Warned the Nation, published by Bloomsbury.

Number of Pages: 192

Dimensions: 0.8 x 9.1 x 6.1 IN

Illustrated: Yes

Publication Date: April 02, 2024

Award: Yalsa Award for Excellence in Non-Fiction for Young Adults (2025)

Accelerated Reader:

Quiz Name: Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town That Looked Away

Interest Level: Upper Grades, 9-12

Reading Level: 8.2

Point Value: 7

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