Juvenile Injustice System

The Indianapolis Star will begin a series this Sunday on what is wrong with our juvenile justice system in Marion Co. A teaser from Rishawn Biddle gives us a clue on what the Star will report:

What do you call a system: In which young men and women are sent to jail by schools for simply tossing snowballs into cars. Where judges deny fair trials to the accused by ignoring the spirit of the law. Where 40 percent of defendents go through serious cases without a lawyer. Under which an overcrowded jail can still get a clean bill of health.

For thousands of children in Indiana and Marion County, it's called the juvenile justice system. And if you think the accusations of sexual exploitation of inmates at the Marion County Juvenile Detention Center are shocking, you've heard nothing yet.

Biddle will appear on WXNT's Abdul In The Morning this coming Monday at 8:05 a.m. to discuss the report. This report may not be good news for Daniels' Director of Child Services, Judge James Payne. He served as Marion Co. juvenile court judge for 20 years before leaving the bench to join the administration last year. You may recall that 9 former workers of the Marion Co. Juvenile Detention Center were criminally charged recently for having sex with underage girls at the center during Payne's tenure at the juvenile court.