March 27, 2021 by Maggie McNeill
This guy lay in shit and...died in [a] cell that looks like a friggin' horse stall. - unnamed investigator
Imagination Pinned DownLike seeing pictures in clouds or inkblots:
The Naked AnthropologistWhen the unrecognizable body of Jeannette DePalma ...was found atop a...wooded hill...called the Devil's Teeth in 1972, rumors spread quickly that the [16-year-old] was killed in some sort of satanic rite...Police...[claim]ed...they had found signs they thought might be related to the occult, including crosses made of sticks and branches arranged in a coffin-like outline around her body...But crime scene photographs released for the first time [last month]...debunk those claims, showing that DePalma's body was simply lying in a dense, brushy area...facedown with an arm draped over a downed tree branch...Jason Coy, a history professor...who researches witchcraft...said he can't find any sign of the occult or any other symbolism in the jumble of brush and branches. It suggests that investigators, looking for something sinister, saw patterns that weren't there..."Everything in th[e police] sketch that was marked out as a cross, in these crime scene photos just looks like a pile of underbrush...it's a perfect example of how...i[f] someone...[has] the idea that something could be occult, they remember things that way"...
Here's Dr. Laura Agustín with GAATW on the rescue industry:
Torture ChamberFor a change, this journalist doesn't refer to torture as "correction":
Not for Any Reason Whatsoever...Reginald Wilson spent more than 1,300 days in and out of jail since 1997 for charges often related to his fragile mental health...in December 2018 [Georgia cops abducted and caged him] for a probation violation...[dur]ing a mental health crisis...he was [lock]ed in a padded [cell and given no professional help, even after]...he smeared his own feces on the wall. "He never slept. He was constantly just up, doing almost like gymnastics when you watched the video," one [screw admitted to]...investigators...Wilson stopped eating, drinking and refused to take medication...[yet] the jail's psychiatrist never saw [him]. In[stead,] staff [just repeatedly yelled "stop faking" at]...him...[and cop]s tased him at least tw[ice]. After... eight days...a [screw] found Wilson not breathing...[and] covered in...feces...[he had] died from...dehydration...
Do I really have to add, "Not because a little boy picked a flower"?
End Demand (#893)[A] 6-year-old...was accused of picking a tulip from a yard at his bus stop, his attorney Julie Boyer said, and...was on trial...for injury to real property. The boy's attention span was too short to follow the proceedings...[so] Boyer...handed him crayons and a coloring book...she...and others [explain that] children that age don't have the mental capacity to understand the juvenile justice process and...can't make informed decisions...[yet at present North Carolina]...expect[s them to]..."Should a child that believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy be making life-altering decisions?" asked...Judge Jay Corpening...[local] advocates...recommend...the age be raised to 12...The National Juvenile Justice Network recommends 14...
It's good to see a story like this quote at least one knowledgeable person:
Columbus [Ohio politicians] are weighing changes to local solicitation laws that would emphasize pu...shing [propaganda about] those who pay for sex [in addition to propaganda about] those who sell it...[politician] Mitchell Brown [vomited out popular nonsense about]...sex trafficking... chief [copagandist and rape apologist] Jennifer Knight ...[salivated about forcing people into "re-education"] sessions...[but actual] researchers like Jennifer Suchland argue "end demand" policies often backfire..."Because there's now substantial evidence to show that they are, one, not actually reducing the amount of exploitation, and two, they are increasing the precarity of those people who are in the sex trade"...Suchland says...the "end demand" model is based on a faulty assumption...
Knight is the sow charged with making excuses for the Columbus rape gang, and claims the way to "build trust" with women is to hunt, rape and cage them.
Don't be deceived by Katz, a duplicitous proponent of Swedish criminalization:
Queens, New York, District Attorney Melinda Katz moved...to dismiss nearly 700 cases against people charged with loitering for the purpose of prostitution...[on] the same day...Mayor Bill de Blasio pushed [Swedish-style]...criminaliz[ation]... The...law was repealed last month out of concern it too often targeted...people...based solely on their appearance ...Katz [followed up by bloviating about]...sex trafficking...
Katz is dismissing these cases because she has to, since the law they were charged under was repealed. This isn't some kind of personal move on her part toward sex worker rights, despite claims to the contrary.
Predictable Consequences 
Lots of sex workers are quoted in this rebuke of prohibitionist yellow journalism:
...The New York Times re[acted to]...the recent slayings of eight persons at three "Asian" spas...by a deranged religious nut...with a self-[indulgent article]...adopting the rhetoric...of...sex work...pro[hibitionists], painting the spas as havens for sex trafficking...without one quote from sex workers or sex worker rights advocates, the Times piece [claim]s that "experts say there are more than 9,000 such businesses" in the U.S. which are "fronts for prostitution," and that "many of the women working there are being exploited." That dubious statistic hails from a particularly odious non-profit, the Polaris Project, which has long conflated consensual adult sex work with sex trafficking and has a history of dealing in fake statistics and urban legends...Massage workers...have no agency, nor any voice, in this scheme or this article...
