The mean streets of the Commonwealth were especially mean this past week and weekend.
A Bedford man was run down and killed during an alleged Burlington drunk driving crash. Further, a resident of a homeless shelter was apparently fatally stabbed near a hospital during a Boston murder. Finally, a man was shot at a Stoughton shooting.
Unfortunately, law enforcement was not on hand to prevent these Massachusetts violent crimes. After all, the police cannot be everywhere!.
However, they were on hand to keep the streets safe in Roxbury to prevent another horrible crime.
Boston police are now crowing about a courageous undercover officer who posed as a prostitute in order to nab five “johns” during a sting in Roxbury.
The intrepid female officer was stationed around Blue Hill Avenue to arouse…testosterone. As men came up to offer money for sex, they found themselves arrested for being part of the Boston sex trade, thus keeping the city streets much safer for us all.
Using the law enforcement’s sparse resources in this way makes sense to the powers that be. It somehow fits in perfectly within their frame of logic.
The media, only too happy to aid in the cause, have published the names, ages and locations of the would-be “johns”.
I decline to follow suit.
Attorney Sam’s Take On MA Prostitution, Human Trafficking And Logic
“Come on, Sam, aren’t you being a bit unfair here? After all, did the prostitution sweep really take place at the same time of all those violent crimes?”
Maybe not. But then again, maybe. Maybe other things were going on around Boston at the time that could have used police attention.
Either way, the point is the same.
“I heard that this sting was a result of a community outcry.”
Maybe. But then, I seem to recall various communities screaming for attention regarding other such incidentals…like shootings, drug trafficking and rapes.
Besides, do not be fooled. These stings are not limited to the streets where, it is portrayed, women and children huddle in doorways, offended and frightend by the scary ladies of the evening.
When the sex trade workers are on the street…. the stings occur on the street. When they leave the street and go to an apartment…the stings go to apartments. When they retreat all the way to the world wide web…you got it…the stings move to those advertisements.
Simply put, when crime is high and resources are short…the police find the sex trade much more fruitful to hunt down by exposing basic human desires to manipulative bait.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Martha Coakley has been testifying and leading the fight against human trafficking. Human trafficking, of course, is indeed a blight on our, and any, civilized society. Unfortunately, the good General keeps using the terms “human trafficking” and “prostitutions” as synonyms. In reality, however, they are not the same thing at all. Many sex workers have chosen that line of work. They are not slaves at all and they are only victimized by a society which persecutes them and does not believe that such a choice could possibly be voluntary.
As this blog has argued many times, the reasons cited to support the Great Hooker Hunt” are actually contradictory to the hunt itself. There are ways in which we could make prostitution safer for both worker and customer. There are ways we could protect those frightend women and children from the evil seductresses. We could even tax the trade and make some much needed money for the Commonwealth.
But that would be common sense logic…not law enforcement logic.
As we have often discussed, they are not the same thing.
The fact is that so long as prostitution is treated as the same thing as human trafficking, the travesty of the sex slave trade will no doubt continue.
Because, frankly, the sex trade is not going anywhere. That’s why the call it the “world’s oldest profession”
You may be wondering what all this has to do with you, assuming you are neither a sex worker or engaging in the slave trade.
Plenty.
The lopsided and poorly-thought-out approaches of law enforcement, and indeed the very system it serves, are often contrary to basic human logic. Sometimes I even wonder if these approaches are actually designed to fail. But, then, that would be a question for another day.
For today, as we begin a week which promises to be especially dreary weather-wise, take today’s blog as another example of an unpleasant realization about the criminal justice system.
Legal logic is not always the same as what passes for logic in the outside world. And inside the great walls of Justice, it is the system’s logic which rules.
Unless you are an experienced criminal defense attorney, you most likely do not truly understand all that you think you understand when it comes to this reality.
When the system has you or a loved one in its clutches, kicking and screaming, try to take a moment to think about protecting yourself wisely. Things like your very freedom depend upon it. Find someone to help you who is familer with the system and its logic.
You need an experienced criminal defense attorney.
If you would like to explore the possibility of said attorney l being me, please feel free to call me at 617-492-3000 to arrange a free initial consultation..
To view the articles upon which this blog is based, please go to http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/05/amesbury_woman.html, http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/05/resident_of_hom.html, http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/05/man_shot_in_sto.html, and
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/05/five_johns_arre.html