Dave Krueger used to run an excellent blog named Sex Hysteria! in which he chronicled the many instances of human stupidity about the subject. “Sex trafficking” was only one of the many topics he covered, and I first heard about the “gypsy whores” myth from him. Alas, real life eventually put so many demands on his time he could not continue the blog, and he doesn’t write as often as he used to, however, he recently reappeared on Twitter and I hope this isn’t the only guest spot he does for me.
One doesn’t have to be an avid follower of the news to notice that American law enforcement is becoming ever more tightly integrated into the day-to-day affairs of ordinary citizens; you no longer have to be suspected of a crime (in the traditional sense of the term) to warrant the interest of any of a multitude of police agencies with overlapping jurisdictions at federal, state, and local levels. Almost every government agency that generates regulations has an enforcement branch armed with guns making sure you aren’t braiding hair or arranging flowers without a license, dealing non-approved milk, buying too much cold medicine, or allowing your kid to sell lemonade, etc. Government insists on using its police powers to dictate even the tiniest details of human commerce; in today’s America, if you breathe, you are probably a law breaker.
But even aside from the regulatory environment, fabricated crime has replaced traditional crime as the central focus of the justice system. In a traditional crime, some act injures a non-consenting person in some way; in a consensual “crime”, all parties engaged in the activity consent to it. Consensual crimes may still result in injury, but no force was used to compel anyone into being a party to them. Consensual crimes include almost all prohibitions on drugs, sex work, gambling, and usury; laws specifically targeting minorities (race, gender, and sexual orientation) belong to the same class. Without compulsion and victimization, it is rare for anyone to report such “crimes”; that is the crux of what differentiates traditional from consensual crime from a law enforcement perspective. Equally important is that many more people engage in outlawed consensual behavior, and usually do so more often than they would commit traditional crimes. In other words, consensual crime creates an endless supply of easy targets for law enforcement.
Over the course of the 20th century, the US justice system experimented with and expanded its focus on consensual crime; in recent years, federal grant programs and asset forfeiture laws have actually incentivized police departments to divert resources away from traditional violent crime fighting. Because people who engage in consensual crime rarely complain, law enforcement must resort to “stings” and confidential informants (CIs) to produce evidence of law breaking; a sting consists of tricking someone into committing the outlawed act, and a CI is anyone willing to testify, in exchange for cash or favors, that someone else committed a crime.
The most prolific campaign against consensual crime started in the 1970s with Nixon’s “War on Drugs”, which triggered a perpetual erosion of the civil liberties which were once considered a defining characteristic of American freedom. Key among these lost freedoms are protections against self-incrimination, unreasonable searches, and privacy in general. The U.S. now has the distinction of having more criminals behind bars than any other country on the planet, and virtually all convictions now come from plea agreements induced by prosecutors who overcharge a defendant and then offer to reduce the charges in exchange for a guilty plea. The path from freedom to prison has become a high-volume assembly line consisting largely of clerical steps in a Kafkaesque system that holds all the cards.
Mixed with the bad news that all Americans are subject to harassment and arrest is the sobering fact that police are not subject to the same laws as the rest of us; there are no consequences when they don’t respect our rights. In the absence of public outrage and irrefutable proof of misconduct, the entire justice system stands ready to shield cops from accountability. Nothing has exposed this culture of corruption like the widespread use of video-capable cell phones to expose cops blatantly and routinely lying about the facts of an arrest, but even when caught red-handed it’s rare for a cop to even be fired, much less charged under criminal law. Cops are also shielded from damages stemming from civil suits; successful suits are paid by taxpayers. On top of that, police are taking on a more militaristic character; SWAT teams that were once intended for dangerous situations like hostage standoffs are now used to serve routine search and arrest warrants. This militaristic, us-against-them, mindset instills an attitude that the public is the enemy; escalation of violence is becoming a reflex law enforcement reaction rather than a tactic of last resort.
Is there any way to reverse this trend? Even as traditional crime rates plunge, the fear-mongering “tough on crime” rhetoric that permeates election campaigning remains very effective with voters. And though millions of Americans are adversely affected by the government crusade against consensual crime, they remain largely disorganized and ignored by the establishment media. The drug war throws thousands out of work, making many unemployable, eroding the tax base and exacerbating poverty, while the voting block that benefits from this taxpayer-financed crusade (cops, prosecutors, judges, the prison system, treatment specialists, attorneys and the illegal drug industry itself) thrives. So although there has been some limited success with rolling back some state marijuana laws, there is not going to be any noticeable diminishment of the powerful industry that benefits from consensual crime laws without massive public pushback; this, however, is highly unlikely because activists who fight consensual crime laws are divided by category. The crusader against the drug war doesn’t see gamblers or sex workers as natural allies, etc.
The only viable prospect for reversing this trend is for everyone with a dog in the fight to recognize they are all fighting the same foe; rather than remaining in isolated pockets of resistance, they need to join together as one movement with one voice. It’s time to make the case that consensual crime laws and the American police state are everyone’s problem. This is not a left vs right issue; the current state of affairs has been an enthusiastic hand-holding joint venture between both Republicans and Democrats, but history shows that parties can change when pushed by a large enough interest group. If you’re a sex worker, gambler, or drug war opponent, you are part of that interest group. If you are the spouse or parent of someone whose life has been ruined because of some low-level consensual crime arrest, you are part of that interest group. Even if you’re just a taxpayer who doesn’t want your taxes used for persecution, you’re part of that interest group. There is power in numbers; we need to stop sending thousands of people to prison every year for no other reason than we don’t like what they do behind closed doors.
A question rather than a comment. In the UK it is possible for an individual to bring a “private” prosecution when the individual thinks a crime has been committed, and when the public authorities don’t want to prosecute. Such “private” prosecutions are rare, and clearly are costly.
Is this possible in the US? Would it be possible to prosecute cops when the authorities wont?
One can bring a civil lawsuit, and sometimes they’re successful. Of course, the penalty is money rather than imprisonment, and that money is simply charged to the taxpayers of the jurisdiction. So when one citizen wins such a victory, it doesn’t hurt the cops at all, only the complainant’s fellow citizens.
I am almost certain that, in the US, only the state can prosecute a criminal offense, but citizens can file criminal complaints and the state can prosecute. Of course, the state has a history of picking and choosing who to prosecute based on moral and racial prejudices.
In any case, the laws that protect people in the realm of other consensual activities would also be applicable for any consensual activities that were made legal. It’s the fact that they are illegal that deprives victims of legal recourse.
Victims can also pursue a civil suit in lieu of criminal charges.
I see. In the UK the burden of proof in a civil suit is “the balance of probabilities” whereas it is “beyond reasonable doubt” in criminal cases.
There was a civil trial a few years ago; the authorities didn’t prosecute some people in respect of the 1998 Omagh bombings; but relatives sued them, and won. AFAIK, this was the first time that a civil action was used to prove liability. The plaintiffs weren’t interested in financial compensation, they wanted to see “justice” done; this was the only reasonable way open to them. (There was a subsequent public prosecution, but this seems to be bogged down in the courts.)
I was just wondering, given the antics of the cops in the US—which Maggie has documented regularly—whether it would be possible for a private person to bring a criminal action (rather than a civil one) against them; the message I’m getting here is that cops in the US are a law very much unto themselves. From what you say, such a private prosecution seems not to be possible.
The US treats civil cases much like you describe. Winning a case results only in a financial penalty, but it only takes a “preponderance of evidence” rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
The problem with filing a criminal complaint against a cop is that prosecutors and cops are essentially part of the same fraternity. Even when overwhelming evidence shows that cops broke the law, prosecutors will often not pursue the charges with much enthusiasm. Cops are occasionally convicted, but usually only when there is strong public sentiment along with irrefutable proof.
In most of the US, the prosecutor’s office and the police are the same people. Thus if you try to file a criminal complaint against a cop, chances are that they’ll refuse to even write it down, and if they do, they’ll send it to a “public affairs bureau” which will automatically rule that cops can do no wrong.
As for suing either the offending cop or his agency, that’s not only expensive, it’s usually blocked by the Tort Claims Act (a federal law that asserts “sovereign immunity” with few and narrow exceptions). And we don’t have loser-pays, so even if you win you still have to pay your own attorney.
The federal government can prosecute local cops who mistreat people, but generally that only happens in cases like that of Rodney King (where a local court’s acquittal of the cops who beat him provoked huge riots in Los Angeles), and even those interventions are motivated less by fairness than by the fear of continued civil unrest. I predict that there won’t be any such intervention in Ferguson, Missouri, since the mob there wasn’t big enough to scare the police. But I may be wrong.
Watch the movie “Law Abiding Citizen” – it comes down to what the prosecutor WANTS to prosecute.
I can say here that the unwilling can be made part of a prosecution by professionals, on can be forced to be a witness, regardless of if one wishes to or not.
The government in the USA has long ceased seeing it’s people as citizens, as share owners in the nation, instead seeing all of us as problems to be managed.
“The only viable prospect for reversing this trend is for everyone with a dog in the fight to recognize they are all fighting the same foe; rather than remaining in isolated pockets of resistance, they need to join together as one movement with one voice.”
Sounds great, but how do we expect that to happen? Would it not require some manner of leader (or a group of leaders) that all this seemingly disparate elements can coalesce behind? This seems to be something of a hangup where without a leader a movement can turn into (or likely just remain) an unruly mob that accomplishes nothing of lasting impact, but any leader that emerges can almost immediately become an object of suspicion and distrust (“It’s such a thankless job, he/she/they must have some ulterior motive for wanting it!”), rendering any positive impact they might make a moot point.
I think there are leaders who advocate for an end to all consensual crime and I think they will gain more support as sex workers, drug decrim advocates, etc. begin to see themselves as part of that bigger picture and sympathize with their natural allies.
It’s not a matter of everyone giving up their focused struggle to join a larger coalition. It’s a matter of convincing politicians that they are part of a larger, more powerful, voting block. I’m not sure how that would evolve, but the mere adoption of a common slogan can signify unity without diluting the individual constituent causes.
Even before the individual groups can come together, the smaller groups need individual leaders to coalesce around. None of the groups currently have a noticeable leader. Part of the problem may be that individuals who just want to be left alone to do their thing are unlikely to follow another due to differences of opinion tearing the groups apart before they can achieve any particular goal.
I have been struck by the fact that many people who strongly oppose the criminalization of one type of consensual crime do not see a relationship to others. I’m not sure if that is due to inertia or a fundamental disagreement with the idea that they share a common plight.
I see them all as part of one larger inexcusable tragedy. People get one life and we should demand that the state have a very compelling reason before it comes down with all its power to destroy the happiness of anyone, much less an entire class of people who have inflicted no injury on others. Consensual crime laws are corrupt at their very core because they are persecution dressed up to look like justice.
I had never really thought about other realms of consensual crime beyond sex workers rights until it became an issue here in Canada with the Bedford trial and then reading more blogs including this one forced me to reconsider and really look at some of my beliefs. I had always supported legalization of marijuana, but looking deeper into the issue I was forced to support legalization of all recreational drugs. I don’t think I would do any harder drugs, but it remains not my right to limit what others may do with their bodies. If what I choose to do is not harming others I would want to be left to my own devices, even if those choices are harmful to myself. Bodily autonomy needs to be my core value and everything needs to be filtered through that lens.
The idea of “consensual” crimes was new to me, though it makes a lot of sense. One aspect that you didn’t cover is “morals”. In the UK, church or canon law regulated morality until the civil courts took this over around the time of the reformation. We used to have, what in the US is “living off the avails” described as living off “immoral earnings”. (This led to some really tortuous arguments; was the grocer who sold food to the harlot really living off her “immoral earnings”?) The confluence of “immorality” and law clearly shows where the ideas came from. The UK still has two archbishops and 24 bishops (all of them English in a “United Kingdom”) in the house of Lords, the upper house of the legislature; are their ideas of morality still present in our laws? And the Puritans left England because it wasn’t “pure” enough for them.
It seems to me that the UK, and particularly the US, have a strong streak of morality running through the legislature and executive. We don’t yet expect our legislators to appear at the hustings with wife and kids, as you do, though this is gradually changing. And surely the message of this is “Christian morality” and the ideal family. Society in the UK is much more secular than a generation or two ago, but somehow the expectation is that legislators will adhere to the standard, perceived morality—particularly around sex. So many people seem to conflate “I don’t approve of it” with “it must be a crime” without understanding that there should be room for other opinions, and without realising that they just might be wrong-headed; and without understanding that “wars” on alcohol, drugs and terror simply don’t work. People like booze, drugs are better made legal, but (I’d say) controlled; and eventually, you always end up talking to terrorists; you can’t win, but neither can they.
Here, we read that approaching 50% of Americans believe in creationism and the literal truth of the Christian Bible. (Mind you, in N Ireland things are pretty similar.) If that’s so, then those who think that “offences” against “morality” should not be crimes have a very uphill job convincing their fellows.
The real problem is this …
“What is the government’s role in shaping and establishing and maintaining society?”
Whether Christian or not … EVERYONE WANTS their kids to grow up in a society that is both FREE, SAFE, and MAINTAINABLE.
Whether Christian or not … EVERYONE has to decide what role government has in this. It’s silly to blame this on Christians since guys like myself, who aren’t Christian – ask ourselves this question everyday.
For instance … at one time, I used to both visit hookers and I believed that prostitution should be illegal. Why? Because I was afraid if it became legal, then society might be damaged by it. To me, it was simply something that needed to remain in the shadows for the good of society. I even used to have an argument I called “justified hypocrisy” to explain this. I knew you could never stomp out prostitution – or drug use … but I was fearful of what government acceptance of these things would do to society at large.
If everyone just did as they pleased – on consensual things – would society degrade into chaos?
If it didn’t degrade into complete chaos – would it still retain it’s ability to be be productive and advance? Would it still be able to defend itself from outside threats?
Simply saying that it’s the fault of morality or religion is narrow minded … it’s only PART of the argument. The real argument is the very basic question about how DEEP government needs to be involved in shaping and maintaining a stable society so that generations can flourish.
“… but I was fearful of what government acceptance of these things would do to society at large.”
I don’t believe that not outlawing an activity equates to government acceptance of it. But, even more than that, I don’t believe that government acceptance of a thing carries any weight in terms of whether it’s good or bad. Government is an entity that serves itself, not the public good.
If we started rolling back the government’s power to dictate how we live, there will probably be a point at which we question whether we’ve rolled it back too much. Personally, I’m of the opinion that we wouldn’t reach that point for a long time, so I’m comfortable suggesting we cross that bridge when we come to it.
As a first step, I suggest we find a way of reducing our prison population. There are plenty of examples of countries that manage to remain prosperous and civilized without incarcerating nearly as much of their population as we do, so the risk that we’ll degenerate into chaos seems pretty remote. We could start by eliminating consensual crime laws and start living up to our claim of being “the land of the free”.
I think you’re correct that consensual crime laws are not the fault of morality or religion. I think they are motivated by simple human nature. People want the security that comes with control over their environment. I don’t think morality and religion are a cause so much as a vehicle by which they try to justify that control.
If legislation is based on morality, then we degenerate into pure democracy where the majority tells the minority how to live. The problem is that everyone is in a minority for some things, so everyone is subject to the whims of others.
Legislating morality doesn’t make people more moral. It just forces them to behave as if they are. In other words, we’re not making them better people by limiting their choices to what we consider to be moral.
So, I think a strong case can be made that the function of laws is not about forcing people to be moral, but restricting their actions so as to not injure people against their will. The definition of injury can certainly be more objective than defining morality.
Character comes from learning and choosing to make the right decisions, not being forced to making the right decisions.
Bravo! I have this argument with Christians all the time. If the part of the “game” is proving your devotion to God … then wouldn’t a guy living his word in Gomorrah be a more righteous “Christian” than one who’s forced to live his word in a society with no temptations?
Those would be different statistics … evolution and perceived accuracy of the Bible.
Regarding “Evolution” …
http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx
– 42 percent believe God created man without evolution.
– Of the evolutionists … the biggest group is those who believe in evolution, but God directed it … 31%. Only 19 percent believe that evolution took place without the influence of God.
Regarding the literal “truth” of the Bible …
http://www.gallup.com/poll/170834/three-four-bible-word-god.aspx
No … only 28 percent believe in the literal truth of the Bible.
Cop in the shooting gallery needs to be wearing camouflage.
The picture’s from ’99; that didn’t become nigh-universal until after 2001.
Dave, one of the best posts you published was about California’s new Coalinga concentration camp for sex offenders against children. The video documentary you inked to has disappeared from YouTube. Do you know anything more about that?
I haven’t followed that story since I closed SexHysteria!, so I probably won’t be much help. Might this be what you’re looking for?:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=84e_1240196003
That’s the video. How did you find it? You’re a genius!
Google search, but then click on “video” to eliminate all but video results.
I now see that the video is incomplete. It only begins to describe the horror being perpetrated by the California state government. For example, one parent who merely encouraged his son and a neighbor’s daughter to enjoy sex play is being confined indefinitely to “protect” childen. The state has probably done much more damage to the two children involved than anyone can imagine, as well as not protecting anybody.
What do you have in mind, when you write laws specifically targeting minorities belong to the same class? Can you give an example?
What I had in mind were laws prohibiting homosexual activities and outlawing drugs that are predominantly associated with a particular race (e.g. opium use by Chinese or excessive penalties for crack cocaine, most popular among blacks). I would also include the prohibition of being topless by women, but not men. Of course, any law banning simple nudity is a consensual crime law regardless of the gender to which it’s applied. There are probably plenty of other examples because laws are routinely crafted to target specific demographics.
I agree very much with Dave’s closing paragraph, and that one movement with one voice already exists, though many of its natural allies haven’t yet found it. It’s the libertarian movement, and legalizing consensual crimes is what it’s about. I’m not a shill for (and don’t even belong to) the Libertarian Party or other organizations; at least some of them are a waste of effort. But by all means let’s look for, and vote for, pro-freedom candidates whatever their party.
You’re right, but most people aren’t ready to make the jump into full-fledged libertarianism, so I wanted to frame the article outside of the libertarian envelope. While libertarians support pot legalization, the actualization of that goal, in the states where it is now legal, could could not have been accomplished by libertarians alone. I suspect it was pushed over the top because it was supported by large numbers of independents and liberals. Some conservatives have also voiced serious objection to the drug war, but I believe they will be the last to support sex work decrim.
Political parties have been known to change with popular trends (e.g. civil rights, gay rights, alcohol prohibition, etc). Government will only relax its war on consensual crime when the push back comes from within the two main political parties. But, as libertarianism gains popularity, it tends to influence the two main parties, You see this with the Tea Party which, while not libertarian, certainly seems to be more aligned with libertarians than republicans on some issues.