According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, a state audit showed that the states registry “is flawed with error-ridden, out-of-date and incomplete information.”
Just one example:
A special state review board, set up to rank offenders by their danger to the community, is so understaffed and backlogged that it has not classified thousands of offenders. The report found that only 6 percent of the state’s almost 20,000 offenders have been classified by the board, which due to budget cuts has only four full-time and four part-time staffers.
A parent’s perspective:
Christina Barnette, 40, an Atlanta mother of three young children, said that she checked the sex offender website in the past — and didn’t find it very helpful. “All it told me was there’s a lot of sex offenders and it doesn’t matter where you live,” she said.
Sex offender registries are one of the more irrational manifestations of the hysteria surrounding sex crimes. Disguised as a measure to protect children (as is the case with nearly all bad programs), they do little to alleviate any danger and a lot to inflame the public fear. Most sex crimes against children are perpetrated by people known to the family, not strangers. Sex registries have now acquired the same reputation as the “No Fly List” in terms of inaccuracy and ineffectiveness. Basically they are a joke supported by a lot of very vocal self-serving fear mongers who want to feel like they are “making a difference”.
According to the Telegraph, the UK has a program that provides money to the old and disabled with practically no strings attached. As a result, some of the money is being used to pay for prostitutes and lap dances.
The £520 million scheme promised to give elderly people and those with disabilities more control over the care they received, by passing on cash so individuals could choose the services they needed, such as home help, or mobility aids.
An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that exotic holidays, internet dating subscriptions and adventure breaks, as well as visits to sex workers and lap dancing clubs have been permitted under the system.
Hell, in the “Land of the Free”, the government won’t let us have some of that stuff even if we pay for it ourselves.
Cook County, IL is aggressively targeting those who use prostitutes by posing as hookers to trick them into committing a crime. Of course, it’s not trickery when cops do it.
Cook county Sheriff Thomas J. Dart unveiled two new billboards on Mannheim Road near O’Hare Sunday, the Sun-Times reports.
The latest tool in the sheriff’s fight to stop prostitution read: “Chances are, the woman you are about to pick up works for us.
Expect to pay $2,150” and “Dear John, if you’re here to solicit sex, it could cost you $2,150. We’re teaming up to bust you.”
Cool. Now when you drive by someone you think might be a hooker on the street, you can point her out to the kids. “Look kids! A cop.” Who knows, that knowledge could be helpful someday when your kid needs a cop. Who says they’re never around when you need one? You just need to know what they look like.
Of course, the big shift from arresting prostitutes to arresting their customers is largely the feminist contribution to the war on prostitution. It’s difficult to claim to be campaigning for women’s rights when when you’re actively supporting the criminalization of what many women do as a profession. To the feminist mind, women’s movement is less about freedom and more about targeting men as exploitative, as if women are mindless putty in their hands (a stunningly insulting position on its face).
The money collected from the fines is given to the Department of Women’s Justice Services. There’s nothing unjust about that since, as everyone knows, if it weren’t for men wanting sex, women wouldn’t be pressured into selling it to them. You know, the same way rock stars are shamefully exploited by those who have a desire for rock music.
“This is not just a one-time sweep,” Dart told the paper. “We’re waging a war on prostitution and want to make it incredibly difficult for every aspect of it to operate here.
Well, at least he’s honest. What could be more effective in fighting crime than waging a war on consenting adults who simply wish to have sex on terms they both agree to?
The Crime Report has an interesting story about New York’s law against “loitering for the purpose of engaging in a prostitution offense”.
And that was pretty much it. The officer didn’t hear her say anything; nor did he ask any of the men he saw her talking to what she had said. That didn’t faze the assistant district attorney, who attempted to get condoms found in the defendant’s purse admitted as evidence.
Of course, prostitution has migrated from the street to the internet:
Before the Internet, vice cops had it relatively easy. Most cities had specific areas known for street prostitution where undercover officers posing as johns could chat up a lady, strike a deal to pay for a sex act, and then pull out the cuffs. But in the last decade, the oldest profession has “gone high-tech,” says Jaime Ayala, Deputy Chief of Police in Arlington, Texas.
Gee, one would think that getting it off the street would be a good thing…
And then there’s the obligatory reference to Craig’s List. Of course, no one really knows how many women and children are actually victimized by Craig’s List, but you can be certain it’s “a lot”.
Anyone who has perused the adult sections of Craigslist or Backpage knows that men and women (and boys and girls) advertise their sexual services online. What this means for police is a lot more legwork. At the same time, a rise in awareness about the ugly world of human trafficking, where women from abroad—and, in some cases, American children—are held hostage in brothels disguised as massage parlors, has shifted law enforcement focus and resources away from traditional vice work, according to many attorneys.
These days, most vice work is simply tricking someone into committing a “crime”. Pardon my skepticism that the internet makes it more difficult for cops to arrest prostitutes. If anything, it makes it easy to set up a sting without even having to leave the office until you’re ready to spring the trap.
The Prostitution Free Zone is a novel idea that codifies the crime of “being in the wrong place at the wrong time” by permitting cops to arrest anyone with a prior record of prostitution who happen to be in the PFZ.
Washington, D.C. also created PFZs in 2006. But, according to Professor John Copacino of the Georgetown University Criminal Justice Clinic, the district “gets around the constitutionality” by making the zones temporary: they can be in effect for just 10 days at a time. Portions of the district’s downtown area were declared PFZs during the inauguration of Barack Obama in January 2009.
I guess it’s ok to suspend people’s Constitutional rights if it’s only in ten day chunks. And then there are the folks who just want to get laid without having to ante up the cash:
Georgetown’s Copacino also sees problems. Standing around, even propositioning potential (non-paying) sexual partners while wearing a short skirt and stilettos, is not illegal. “You can’t criminalize normal behavior, ” says Copacino.
It gets worse:
The problem, says [Portland defense attorney Elizabeth Wakefield], is that the city is now issuing many of these charges as violations rather than crimes, which under Oregon law means that the defendants don’t qualify for court-appointed counsel who could encourage them to challenge the arrest.
I have been browsing the web to get a measure of how much opposition there is to the smear campaign against Craig’s List by numerous state governments, the mainstream media, and the rescue industry. The answer is next to none.
But every now and then I stumble across an article that pours a little cold water on the creative claims made by crusaders pushing a political agenda (which is basically the mission of the rescue industry).
Techdirt very nicely makes the simple point that, if Craigs List really is the “Walmart of online sex trafficking”, then why isn’t law enforcement capitalizing on it to round up all the evil doers that that the rescue industry claims are so boldly advertising there?
Hell, if Craig’s List closes it’s adult section, won’t that just result in the traffickers scattering to the four corners of the earth where they will be much more difficult to snare? Law enforcement should be thanking Craig’s List for bringing all these potential perps together in one place.
And if the rescue industry was really interested in saving children, they wouldn’t be painting Craig’s List as the villain. On the other hand, if they are only interested in attacking prostitution, then targeting Craig’s List makes perfect sense.
From what I saw of a piece by Amber Lyon, CNN is fully allied with the rest of the mainstream media and political establishment in the war against craigslist.
I left a comment, but it is currently “awaiting moderation”, so I decided to post it here for your viewing pleasure:
Ok, so you say in the video that you have “run into a lot of victims”. How many, exactly, is “a lot”? How many of the victims you have run into are children? Of all these thousands of ads, surely you must have come up with at least a few hundred so-called victims that you immediately marched down to the local district attorney’s office to open criminal cases against the slave masters and pimps who forced them into that line of work, right?
I find it odd that “the press” is fast becoming one of the most vocal advocates for internet censorship, which is precisely what CNN is suggesting in this piece. Since the First Amendment restricts the government from prohibiting these ads, you’re promoting an end run around the Bill of Rights by climbing aboard the intimidation bandwagon to get craigslist to do what you have no legal right to do yourselves.
You uncritically buy into propaganda from political advocacy groups like the Fair Fund and repeat their sound bites because, after all, how can you argue with an outfit with “fair” in their name. Especially one that “rescues” children.
To counter the argument that prostitution is a victimless crime, anti-prostitution crusaders claim that all prostitutes are victims. Prostitutes that say they are in the business of their own free will are in denial and too retarded to know they are being exploited. And to further inflame public sentiment, these activist groups claim that “a lot” of prostitutes are children. They then back up these claims with estimates (guesses based on the tip-of-the-iceberg theory) and delusional claims that news outfits like CNN mindlessly repeat without question.
While there are certainly abuses, as there are in any business, prostitution is, at its core, nothing more than a exchange of sex for money by consenting adults. Your intentional distortion of the picture in order to generate public outrage and boost ratings puts you squarely along side Fox News as sacrificing objectivity on the alter of sensationalism and profits.
It would be interesting if, just once, CNN would take the initiative to do actual investigation rather than jumping on the latest news trend and reporting exactly the same mindless drivel that every other lazy news outlet is reporting (and I use the term “reporting” very loosely).
The best thing craigslist could do is nothing. They are not internet policemen and they are not doing the American public any good by caving in to intimidation and threats from those who demand that they impose politically motivated censorship rules on what its users want to say. My hope is that craigslist will fight this witch hunt to the very end. Trying to please moral crusaders and petty tyrants just whets their appetite for more.
[Update] Surprise. They didn’t post my comment. Other commenters made some of the same points I made, however (including the comparison of CNN with Fox News).
Before I started this site, I wanted to start a blog called youpeople.org because, folks, there are times when you just want to grab the public by the shoulders and yell, “What’s wrong with You People?”
While everyone has heard the phrase, ’sex sells’, it would be a challenge to find anyone more dedicated to that philosophy for their own personal gain than politicians. And way out ahead of the pack you will find prosecutors.
Nothing exemplifies that approach to self fulfillment quite like the parade of state attorneys general who have hitched their wagon to the moral crusade against craigslist. As described on Huffington Post, seventeen state attorneys general have signed a letter (PDF) demanding that craigslist remove its adult services section.
“Only Craigslist has the power to stop these ads before they are even published,” Kansas attorney general Steve Six said in a statement.
Yes, that is absolutely correct. That’s because the First Amendment prevents the government from doing it itself. Unfortunately, being good students of the persuasion techniques practiced by organized crime, state governments are masters at intimidation when it looks like it could gain them some votes.
The campaign against craigslist didn’t start as a grass roots movement. It started as a crusade by a noisy minority who are adept at stirring up public emotion with visions of children being exploited.
“No amount of money, however, can justify the scourge of illegal prostitution and the suffering of the women and children who will continue to be victimized, in the market and trafficking provided by Craigslist,” the letter said.
Women who advertise on criagslist are invariably described as idiots with no will of their own to resist exploitation by evil pimps and slave masters. They have to be victims, otherwise who would get worked up about it? And, of course, a lot of them have to be children for the same reason.
While wearing sheets is out of fashion, there should be no mistake that these state attorneys general are using persecution of a favorite target as a means to inflame the public’s mob mentality. They might as well be carrying torches and pitchforks. And the public, knowing that it would be impolite to demand actual numerical evidence that rises above the level of guesses and delusional claims, mindlessly goes along with the hysteria. Who would oppose those whose only wish is to “help women and children”? But, the last time I heard, a willingness to be your brother’s keeper wasn’t sufficient reason to burn the Constitution.
My message to the people of these states is this:
Well, folks, your wish is coming true. In your fervor to impose your narrow personal values on everyone else, You People have created a monster who will enthusiastically piss on free speech in order to carry out your will. But, be warned. The monster is pretty kinky. He likes a threesome, so don’t be surprised to find him in your bed as a supervising partner deciding what does or doesn’t constitute acceptable behavior between you and your lover.
P.S. I intentionally avoided mention of Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley simply because if I started writing about her, this post would have turned into a book. She is probably one of the most self-serving and parasitic of politicians, having mastered the craft of exploiting children and sex hysteria for her own personal benefit. In a contest to be the antichrist, Coakley would be a leading contender.
Nothing exemplifies American society’s predilection for inventing boogie men quite like the utterly insane attitude they have toward certain words. They have essentially surrendered to the notion that a simple arrangement of letters is inherently harmful, independent of context or meaning. Not a day goes by without news stories and blog posts focusing on the word “fuck”. And, ridiculous as it may be, the authors rarely refer to the actual word, but instead substitute a code word so as to avoid offending anyone. Not only is it childish, but it is stunningly spineless. What kind of challenge or authority can come from someone who cowers under the fear of ruffling some reader’s feathers?
But, alas, there is hope. If you are even remotely in touch with American culture, you have heard of the movie, Kick Ass. Personally, I have seen it and believe that the movie would be vastly improved if it merely eliminated the part of Kick Ass and his girl friend from the plot. The real genius of this movie is in the part of Hit Girl, who transgresses into the land of adult language so boldly and easily that the world has been changed forever (and its about goddamn fuckin’ time).
Back in the 60s, the big fear was an atomic bomb attack from the USSR. The term was commonly shortened to “A-Bomb”. While watching the movie Unthinkable the other day, it occurred to me that we now invariably use the term “nuclear bomb” instead of atomic bomb. Of course, you can’t shorten the term to “N-bomb”, because N-bomb is already reserved as a milquetoast-friendly substitute for the word “nigger” which is another word that cannot be uttered in public if even to denounce it.
According to The Daily Beast, the Obama administration is actively campaigning to bring a criminal charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. They are not only pressuring Europena countries to open criminal investigations, but officials are also contemplating criminal charges in the U.S.
Officials tell The Daily Beast that the U.S. effort reflects a growing belief that WikiLeaks and organizations like it threaten grave damage to American national security, as well as a growing suspicion in Washington that Assange has damaged his own standing with foreign governments and organizations that might otherwise be sympathetic to his anti-censorship cause.
I think what the U.S. is worried about is the embarrassment caused by the disclosure of information that contradicts official public reports. Despite all the lofty rhetoric to the contrary, government concerns over the loss of life in any war are generally limited to how casualties might affect public support of the war. There is no shortage of examples that illustrate the willingness of the U.S. to engage in war, so it’s more than a little disingenuous to point the finger elsewhere when it comes to endangering anyone’s life.
Democracies require an informed populace. Wikileaks is working to that end while Western governments are becoming more secretive. While Obama made transparency a campaign promise, it has not been forthcoming and despite all the objections voiced by Democrats in response to Patriot Act secrecy requirements, little to no action has been taken to roll back those infringements on Constitutional protections.
If anyone is risking American and Afghan lives it isn’t Julian Assange and Wikileaks hasn’t been promoting a decade long war in and occupation of that country.
While browsing the web, I just noticed that seattlepi.com carried a story about a half page ad apparently financed by the Rebecca Project for Human Rights on behalf of a pair of girls, AK and MC, who were aledgedly prostituted on craigslist. But, this story was dated back in May. Perhaps AK and MC are all they have, so they keep repeating the story.
The Rebecca Project for Human Rights, in attacking adult ads on craigslist, apparently doesn’t consider control over your own body a human right. The single roof that these activist organizations seem to share is their opposition to prostitution. The fact that they are hurting both adult women and children in the process is merely an inconvenient truth.
There is nothing new about the kind of advertizing posted on craigslist aside from the sheer volume of ads published there. The accusation that craigslist is the “Walmart of online sex trafficking” is telling. It reminds me of a similar vocal nationwide campaign against actual Walmart stores by people who simply don’t like Walmart.
If this witch hunt against craigslist continues, I will probably have to add a category just for them. This is shaping up to be another destructive fiasco like the crusade against “big tobacco” or silicone breast implants.
