Complicating efforts to pull the nation out of the financial crisis is a serious erosion of public trust in institutions and leaders, in both the public and private sectors.

The greed exhibited by Wall Street executives and elite commercial bankers in extracting extraordinary profits has eroded the public's trust in the financial system. Trust in politics has been eroded by corruption charges against leading politicians, most notably Rod Blagojevich, the impeached former governor of Illinois, and several prominent politicians in Pennsylvania, including former state Sen. Vincent Fumo of Philadelphia and former state Rep. Mike Veon of Beaver County.

In recent weeks, the court system in Pennsylvania also suffered a blow, when two Luzerne County judges pleaded guilty to corruption for sentencing thousands of juveniles to private detention centers from which the judges were getting kickback payments amounting to $2.6 million.

The public trust in a range of institutions, from big business to politics, has been seriously undermined by a string of events in recent years. And now, the justice system, which most people believe should be held to the highest moral and ethical standard, has been tarnished.

The judges' money-making scheme not only eroded trust in the judicial system, it also cost taxpayers millions of dollars for the presumably inflated prices charged by PA Child Care LLC in Luzerne County and Western PA Child Care LLC, in northern Butler County.

Beyond the cost to taxpayers for the higher-than-necessary charges from the private juvenile detention centers, there is the cost of the federal investigation into the scheme. The costly incarcerations, all of which now are suspect, caused some parents to have their wages garnished or public assistance benefits taken away.

With the judges pleading guilty, the 2,000 cases they ruled on must be reviewed. The legal rights of those 2,000 youths were violated by the corrupt judges, and the outrage of their families and friends is justified — as are the civil lawsuits that will follow. Two lawsuits already have been filed.

Many of the juveniles had no criminal record when they were sentenced, and in many cases they were denied legal representation by an attorney.

The majority of the charges involve the detention center in Luzerne County, but its sister facility, located in northern Butler County, also is now under scrutiny. The bogus sentencing meant tens of millions of dollars of revenue for detention center owners.

The former owner of the detention centers is among those targeted by the two civil lawsuits filed on behalf of the hundreds of juveniles and their families who were victimized by the judges. A former co-owner of the centers, attorney Robert Powell, claims to be a victim of extortion. Powell sold his share of the centers to his partner, Greg Zappala. Published reports say Zappala is not a target of the investigation, and he says he was unaware of the payoffs.

One red flag in the case should have been the fact that former Judge Mark Ciavarella sentenced about 25 percent of the youths appearing before him to juvenile detention centers. The state average for such sentencings is about 10 percent.

After pleading guilty, Ciavarella and Michael Conahan were sentenced to seven years in prison. They also were removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The public's trust in the court system has suffered another blow because of these two corrupt judges. A few years earlier, the involvement of Ralph Cappy, former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, in secret meetings with top state lawmakers that led to the controversial legislative pay-raise vote of 2005, eroded trust in the state's highest court.

Now, the corruption case in Luzerne County has done further damage to public perception of the justice system in Pennsylvania.

Even if most people believe that these incidents of corruption and unethical behavior represent the rare exception, it will take years for public trust to be restored. In the meantime, the public and the media should be on alert.