Chloé Vitale is a reentry student who transferred to UCLA last year to major in sociology with a minor in African American studies.  She is on track to graduate this spring with Latin honors, college honors, and department honors, for which she is performing research that has earned her a spot in the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program.  For her honors thesis, Chloé is performing her first historical ethnography.  She will research the infamous “Kids for Cash” scandal of 2008 in which President Judge Mark Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael Conahan of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania were convicted of a conspiracy to sentence minors to a private, for-profit juvenile detention center in exchange for 2.2 million dollars in kick-backs.  I anticipate that my results will shed light on some of the failures in our justice system that have allowed room for such abuse to occur.  I believe that if this happened once it is likely happening somewhere else.  By understanding how this happened, we can move away from the notion that one bad judge went rogue and move toward fixing a system that is in desperate need of an overhaul.  This research project aims to answer the question of how this was allowed to continue for so many years while these violations were repeatedly normalized, and systematically address this organizational misconduct in terms of the competitive environment, organizational characteristics, and the regulatory environment.  After graduation, Chloé will take a year off to travel before returning to the United States to begin doctoral studies in critical race theory.