Debbie Peagler was serving a life sentence for her involvement in her boyfriend's murder - a boyfriend who was abusive and had forced her into prostitution.
Her case was picked up pro bono by two San Francisco area lawyers, Joshua Safran and Nadia Costa, after a law was passed in 2003 that allowed incarcerated women who were victims of domestic violence to introduce new evidence.
Berkeley filmmaker Yoav Potash spent years chronicling the case, and the result is the documentary "Crime After Crime," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, played recently at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and opens in theaters Friday. It has also been picked up by the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Potash, Safran and Costa sat down with The Chronicle at the SFJFF screening at the Castro Theatre.
Potash: You meet (Peagler), and you can immediately tell she'd been through hell with all the abuse she's suffered, all the injustices she's suffered, and yet she's an inspiring, uplifting person to be around.
Costa: We thought it would be 3 to 6 months; 7 1/2 years later, here we sit!
Potash: There's a lot that we'd like to see in terms of domestic violence laws in America. (The laws) are an outgrowth of the women's movement, which itself is not that old of a phenomenon. California is the only state that has this particular law that allows incarcerated survivors of domestic violence to present their evidence to the court proactively. New York state has a similar resolution that's been proposed; hopefully that will be passed, and with California and New York the models, other states will follow suit. So what we're engaged in is a nonprofit project called "Debbie's Campaign," where we're using the film to help reduce domestic violence, to reduce unlawful incarceration and to support full and fair consideration of those kinds of laws.
Costa: Abuse against women and children today exist because as a society we want to look away. As long as we do that, it will continue.
Starts August 5, 2011 at San Francisco area theaters.
You might remember Debbie Peagler was a woman who was serving a life sentence for her involvement in her boyfriend's murder - a boyfriend who was abusive and had forced her into prostitution.
Her case was picked up pro bono by two San Francisco area lawyers, Joshua Safran and Nadia Costa, after a law was passed in 2003 that allowed incarcerated women who were victims of domestic violence to introduce new evidence.
Berkeley filmmaker Yoav Potash spent years chronicling the case, and the result is the documentary "Crime After Crime," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, played recently at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and opens in theaters Friday. It has also been picked up by the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Potash, Safran and Costa sat down with The Chronicle at the SFJFF screening at the Castro Theatre.
Potash: You meet (Peagler), and you can immediately tell she'd been through hell with all the abuse she's suffered, all the injustices she's suffered, and yet she's an inspiring, uplifting person to be around.
Costa: We thought it would be 3 to 6 months; 7 1/2 years later, here we sit!
Potash: There's a lot that we'd like to see in terms of domestic violence laws in America. (The laws) are an outgrowth of the women's movement, which itself is not that old of a phenomenon. California is the only state that has this particular law that allows incarcerated survivors of domestic violence to present their evidence to the court proactively. New York state has a similar resolution that's been proposed; hopefully that will be passed, and with California and New York the models, other states will follow suit. So what we're engaged in is a nonprofit project called "Debbie's Campaign," where we're using the film to help reduce domestic violence, to reduce unlawful incarceration and to support full and fair consideration of those kinds of laws.
Costa: Abuse against women and children today exist because as a society we want to look away. As long as we do that, it will continue.
Starts August 5, 2011 at San Francisco area theaters.
Neither candidate for US Senate has made a public statement about legal prostitution in the state.
- Melissa Farley
]]> By Henry Brean, Las Vegas Review-JournalOct. 19, 2010
PAHRUMP -- Nye County regulators have agreed to let brothel owner Maynard "Joe" Richards stay in business, even after he admitted bribing one of their own.
Citing Richards' otherwise "unblemished" record stretching back 30 years, the Nye County Licensing and Liquor Board voted unanimously Tuesday to let him keep his licenses as long as he pays a $50,000 fine and stays out of trouble for the next four years.
The board, which includes the five-member County Commission and the sheriff, could have revoked Richards' brothel license, effectively shutting down his bordello off U.S. Highway 95 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Instead, County Commissioner Joni Eastley argued that Richards should be allowed to stay in business because he poses no threat to the community.
But the brothel owner did not escape completely unscathed. Eastley recommended the fine and a probationary period to last until 2014, though she did not spell out the terms of the probation.
"Mr. Richards has admitted to committing a felony," she said. "The board cannot ignore that."
Eastley said she considered at least a temporary closure of Richards' Cherry Patch 2 brothel, but she rejected that idea because it would hurt his employees.
"If we put him out of business, those people are out of work," she said.
Bobbi Davis, who owns the Shady Lady Ranch brothel in central Nye County, said her competitor got off easy.
"They should have taken his license," Davis said. "They keep telling us what a privilege this license is. Now they let a convicted felon keep his?
"If they're not on the take, they're sure making everyone think they are," she said.
The board also voted Tuesday to let Richards keep his liquor license for the castle-themed strip club he built at one of Pahrump's busier intersections.
Both votes were unanimous, with Lt. Frank Jarvis filling in for Sheriff Tony DeMeo, who removed himself from the case because of his inside knowledge of the FBI's investigation of Richards.
The brothel owner was indicted in 2006 on two felony counts of federal wire fraud after he paid then-Commissioner Candice Trummell $5,000 to rewrite an ordinance that had kept him from building a new house of prostitution at the south end of Pahrump.
Trummell was working as an FBI informant, and the meetings and phone conversations she secretly recorded made the government's case against Richards.
In March 2009, Richards pleaded guilty to one of the charges as part of a deal with federal prosecutors that spared him prison time.
He has since served a one-year term of so-called community confinement at a Las Vegas area halfway house.
Richards recently sold two of his three Nye County bordellos to Northern Nevada brothel owner Dennis Hof, whose Moonlite Bunny Ranch east of Carson City is featured in the HBO reality show "Cathouse."
Tuesday's hearing was conducted in fits and starts, and came after more than a year of procedural delays. The board recessed for about 30 minutes before each of Eastley's motions.
Richards did not attend the hearing. His attorney, Todd Leventhal, tried to halt the proceeding before it began, citing an unsettled legal challenge he filed in Pahrump District Court.
Leventhal said he was "not prepared to participate" in the hearing until District Judge Robert Lane rules on his challenge.
As it turned out, he didn't need to participate.
After the hearing, Leventhal said it would be up to Richards to decide whether to pay the $50,000 fine and move on or continue with the legal challenge.
If he does decide to fight, an angry Davis predicted another win for Richards.
"I always heard Nye County was crooked. I guess it's true," she said. "It's crooked as hell."
]]>Sunday October 24th 2:00pm
The Women's Building Audre Lorde Room, 2nd Floor
3543 18th Street San Francisco, CA 94110
$5-$10
Barry previously wrote Female Sexual Slavery, Prostitution of Sexuality: Global Exploitation of Women, Susan B. Anthony: A Biography of a Singular Feminist, Vietnamese Women in Transition
"How can we end war if we don't understand the makings of war? Kathleen Barry's Unmaking War, Remaking Men is a remarkable blend of history, current war-making and soul-searching that unravels the very structures of war. Her fascinating questions--ranging from "Why don't the Geneva Conventions protect the rights of combatants?" to "Why are women in the peaceful nation of Costa Rica subjected to outrageous levels of masculine violence?"--lead to her analysis that the unmaking of war requires the rehumanization of men. Read it, get energized and join us in Barry's ultimate challenge: replacing the paradigm of war with a paradigm of shared human consciousness based on empathy."
--Medea Benjamin, cofounder, CODEPINK and Global Exchange
For event information:
(415) 355-0300
nancymancias@codepink.org
Step One - 'Us and Them'
Step Two - 'Obey'
Step Three 'Do Them Harm'
Step 4 'Apathy'
Step 5 - 'Exterminate'
SAN FRANCISCO, May 20 (UPI) -- An advertisement placed in a California newspaper said Craiglist's adult services section is "the choice of traffickers" in sex with underage girls.
The half-page ad, addressed to Craigslist founder Craig Newmark in Wednesday's San Francisco Chronicle, calls for Craigslist to discontinue its adult services section, which generated $36 million in revenues this year, and included the experiences of two teenage girls who said they were forced into prostitution via Craigslist, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.
]]> Craigslist Chief Executive Officer Jim Buckmaster said his company is the only one that tries to curtail prostitution, using methods such as reviewing every ad, asking users to report suspicious activity and supporting law enforcement sweeps and stings."We'd like to do even more, and my door remains open to experts from advocacy groups and law enforcement with ideas on how we can improve," Buckmaster said.
But visitors to the site's adult services section in California "will see what clearly are children up for sale," said Malika Saar, the executive director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, the Washington organization that sponsored the ad.
"Craigslist is the choice of traffickers because it's so well known and there are rarely consequences to using it for these illegal acts," the ad said.
THE ADVERTISEMENT READS AS FOLLOWS
Dear Craig,
Although we have not met, we are certain you would not want what happened to us or to thousands of
girls like us to ever happen again.
Craig, I am AK. In 2009, I met a man twice my age who pretended to be my boyfriend, and my life as
an average girl � looking forward to college, doing my chores, and hanging out with my friends �
ended. This �boyfriend� soon revealed he was a pimp. He put my picture on Craigslist, and I was sold
for sex by the hour at truck stops and cheap motels, 10 hours with 10 different men every night. Thi s
became my life.
Men answered the Craigslist advertisements and paid to rape me. The $30,000 he pocketed each month
was facilitated by Craigslist 300 times. I personally know over 20 girls who were trafficked through
Craigslist. Like me, they were taken from city to city, each time sold on a different Craigslist sit e �
Philadelphia, Dallas, Milwaukee, Washington D.C. My phone would ring, and soon men would line up
in the parking lot. One Craigslist caller viciously brutalized me, threatening to dump my body in a
river. Miraculously, I survived.
Craig, I am MC. I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28 year-old man. I am
not an exception. The man who trafficked me sold many girls my age, his house was called �Daddy
Day Care.� All day, me and other girls sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on
Craigslist, he made $1,500 a night selling my body, dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little
Rock � and one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car.
I am 17 now, and my childhood memories aren�t of my family, going to middle school, or dancing at
th eprom. They are making my own arrangements on Craigslist to be sold for sex, and answering as many ads as possible for fear of beatings and ice water baths.
Craig, we write this letter so you will know from our personal experiences how Craigslist makes horrific
acts like this so easy to carry out, and the men who carry out, and men who arrange them very rich.
Craig, we know you oppose trafficking and exploitation. But right now, Craigslist is the choice of
traffickers because it�s so well known and there are rarely consequences to using it for these illeg al
acts. We�ve heard that the Adult Services section of Craigslist brings in $36 million a year by char ging
for these ads. These profits are made at the expense of girls like us, who are lured, kidnapped, and forced to feed the increasing demand for child rape. New traffickers are putting up ads every day, because they know it�s less risky and more profitable to sell girls on Craigslist than to deal drugs.
Please, Craig, close down the Adult Services section. Saving even one child is worth it. It could have
been us.
Sincerely,
AK & MC
Survivors of Craigslist Sex Trafficking
Want to Take Action � Visit www.rebeccaproject.org/site Want to Help Girls � Visit Fairfund.org, or
thenationalcrittentonfoundation.org
Paid Advertisement by The Rebecca Project For Human Rights
They say prostitution is a choice? How did I choose prostitution? I didn't choose prostitution, it chose me. Just as child sexual assault and neglect had chose me. I was not a willing participant, but lured into a life I saw as my only option. The words choose means to select from a number of possibilities; pick by preference. Choose is a term loosely used when referring to woman in prostitution, most of the time poverty ignorance or pimps lure women into prostitution by selling them dreams. Most of the times a lifetime of poverty play a role in the choice.
My story is about a childhood cut short, quickly interrupted with sex, drugs, neglect and mental abuse. Some people inherit money, ethics, values or property from their family. I inherited generations of ignorance. My grandmother and mother were uneducated, neglected and abused. Early on the torch was passed down to me. My story is about a child who knew before she could reach the tall shelf in the kitchen, that my greatest asset was my body.
]]> My story is about the little voice inside me that whispered you deserve more as I lay on my back counting dots on the ceiling pretending I wasn�t being molested. They say that a baby that gets no hugs or affection can die. But what they don�t talk much about is the babies that do live. That is my story. I am the child that did not die. The first trick I turned was a week after my mother died. I had just moved out of a battered women�s shelter into the home my mother was renting before she died and if I wanted to stay there I needed to pay rent immediately. I had a two year old baby to feed, no home, no car and I was presented with the choice to make money or not eat. I answered an ad on Craig�s list for online models. I had an eighth grade education and a learning disability. At the time I could barely fill out a job application and I had been refused work at McDonald�s because I couldn�t work the hours and afford childcare.
In an instant I was asking myself, would you prefer to sell your body or prefer to live in poverty? Prostitution was introduced to me, disguised as online modeling. It misrepresented itself as a lifeline for change. It was hard for me to be selective when I felt I was sinking. I was desperate, vulnerable and felt like I was drowning. When I searched for a lifeline I grabbed the first thing that came my way. At first when the money started to touch my hand I was convinced I had found my place in the world, my power. But quickly the money went through my hands and right into the pocket of my �boyfriend� or the percentage fee I had to pay to work incall [a kind of prostitution where the pimp has a cellphone and sends women to tricks� houses]. The only way my boyfriend would accept the way I was making money was if he was the accountant. So he began to mange and manipulate my money. He paid our bills, and tried to protect me. I had no say in how the money was spent. Most nights I didn�t even bother to count the hundreds I would make. No matter how hard he tried to watch my back, he couldn�t come to appointments with me and many times his protection attempts failed. Not only was I subjected to humiliation, assault and robbery, the emotional impact hit me hard. At one incall place the pimp who ran it didn�t care what the clients did to us as long as we paid our fee.
Although I was miserable and couldn�t spend my own money, I convinced myself I was powerful. Looking at me from the outside you would have thought I had it all and was happy. But the truth was, I had an eighth grade education and had never even seen a hundred dollar bill till I started working as a prostitute. I began to help support my grandma, my cousins, my boyfriend�s extended family and his seven children. I was a machine, a robot, having sex sometimes up to ten times a day or night. I worked incall many years. I felt like I held the world on my shoulders. I was Christmas, birthdays and Fourth of July for everybody but me. There was a time when I convinced myself I didn�t care that I was a prostitute. I had given up on my dream to work with children. I told myself I was good at what I did and I couldn�t see myself ever being more than what I had become. I had started having sex at ten years old; I knew how to please men, even if it killed me. But at night when I came home and I showered I scrubbed and lathered to try and get the streets off me. I hated being touched by tricks. Each time I did a call I felt as if I was being raped again. Working incall I never knew what my day would bring. My best friend was raped in the room next to me and I never heard a sound. The trick muffled her cries and walked out like nothing was wrong. Every day I would try to drown out the thought that I might be next. My mantra was get your money and get them out, but I was dying inside.
Now that I am out I have not been able to escape the effect my past has had on me. Years after I getting out of prostitution the pain stays. I still sleep with the light on. It hurt my soul that teachers, doctors, and family men paid me for sex. It haunts me to see girls being pimped and to see the men that buy them. It changed the way I look at people. Seeing men secretly pay me for sex then go back to their families made me lose respect for myself and for most men.
Everybody close to me knew I was a prostitute and not one time did anybody say no to the money I was handing out. It got to the point that I couldn�t do an appointment without being so numb with Alcohol or Zanax that I couldn�t even feel my own body as I was being touched. No family member ever said you shouldn�t be doing this,you are better than this. The pressure of having to pretend I liked the sex and the fear that I might be killed some day got to be too much for me. One night when I was ready to meet up with a trick my daughter looked at me and said, �mommy, where are you going? You look so pretty.� I looked at my daughter and I asked myself the same question, where are you going. I told myself, you are better than this and I made a decision to quit. When I quit I lost everything I had, my home, my car and I had to start from scratch.
Once again the word choose means to select from a number of possibilities or to pick by preference. Here is a choice to think about. Which arm would you like me to chop off, your right or left? Is that really a choice? Would most of us choose to have the left hand chopped off since most of us are right handed? When real alternatives do not exist, it looks like people are making bad choices. What are the basic rights that all women and children should have so that they never have to make the �choice� to prostitute?
A Guide for Mothers, Grandmothers, and Others, for Helping a Girl Caught in Prostitution or Sex Trafficking. download manual
Guida dirigida a madres, abuelas y otras personas para ayudar a juvenes atrapadas en la prostitucion o la trata. download manual
]]>
Did Missing DNA Thwart Hunt For Serial Killer
posted by Jeanette R, blogger for Prostitution Research & Education
]]>
posted by Elisabeth Rainsberger, blogger for Prostitution Research & Education
Read the rest of the article below
"We don't want to look under the rock that was Jackson's real life. As with so many other things, we don't want to know."
Herbert article here
Check out readers' responses to Herbert's notion that many people insist on fantasy, adamantly refusing to know what is painful, sexist, and racist in the world. here
Excerpts from a few comments are listed below.
104. On all levels there has been an abdication of ADULTHOOD,...In the name of cultural, social and sexual freedom,...we have instead opted for preying on the most vulnerable members of our society and across the board we have gorged on a culture of cheap consumerism....A chronic, impulsive abdication of all responsible business practices that led to the complete financial meltdown we live with today
163. The predations of Michael Jackson are simply a manifestation of the 'it's all good', 'who are we to judge', and 'hey, I just wanna have fun' mentality that is propogated by the entertainment and media industries. Chickens. Home. Roost.
173. here is a man that bleaches himself, basically buys white children and we're supposed to regard him as a symbol of black america.To paraphrase spike lee from a few days ago-black folks had better not hear anyone speaking bad about michael jackson. come again?? Really?? Barack Obama is the leader of the free world, but black america still feels the need to rally around michael jackson as its champion? Come on, that is insulting.
176 "We don't want to look under the rock that was Jackson's real life."
To be fair, we don't want to look under the rock that is OUR real life.
-- Sanctimonious political blowhards who talk about "the sanctity of marriage" and "family values" who turn out to be the most egregious hypocrites.
-- Congress being commanded to stand in silence in respect for ... MIchael Jackson?!!! Understandable, when you consider a national holiday for the horrific Christopher Columbus.
--Our delusional trust in "free markets", the "financial system", alleged "regulators", bought and sold elected officials and investment charlatans.
--Belief that "God" is a violent real estate agent (MIddle East), speaks to gay bashers, domestic and foreign terrorists, et al and tells them whom to hate and maim, demands institutionalized inferiority of women and has, apparently, all the needy and dysfunctional qualities of a very troubled pre-adolescent boy in need of psychotherapy.
We are not yet able to conduct our business as non-delusional adults
191. How do we respond to Herbert's thesis? Unthinkable as it may be in our society of where fast trumps thoughtfulness, one should reflect on how we might see our nation's reality as it truly is; and make daily personal choices to get a grip on how much we feed the cancerous growth of a culture which rewards mindless, adolescent behavior cloaked as acceptable social interaction.
239. Whatever his tremendous talents were we should not be praising and idolizing a pedophile. There's something quite repulsive about all the crying and all the adulation from these fans.
247. Is it really that weird or odd that in the United States, a rich young Black man might grow up to feel he would be better liked, considered more successful, but most of all, safer in a white-skin than a Black one?
Yes, he was trying to step outside of and leave reality behind. But I ask you, what exactly was the reality being offered to him as a young Black man? We want Black boys to head towards manhood with full macho-ness, while society has made clear that once they embrace that manhood, they will be targeted for violence and death.
We want to pretend that children can be repeatedly physically and sexually abused, and then expect them to grow-up to be adults who are completely at ease with their bodies and sexuality. If that's not an entire society living in a fantasy world, then what is? And we want to pretend that they then won't turn around and hurt others in exactly the same way they were hurt. Instead of seeing their actions as a cry for real help, all we do as a society is condemn.
260. Americans by their nature don't like the truth, truth inherently causes pain because just as in life not all news is good news so much of the time the truth is told it makes people uncomfortable.
Be it Michael Jacksons sordid life or the fact that Ronald Reagan was not a great President the people don't like the truth. The people never wanted the truth about New Orleans and how many people really died through government failure or the inability to if not repair New Orleans at least to clean it up.
Michael Jackson is just a microcosm of our society as a whole, they just don't want the truth.
270. "We" are all responsible -- each and every one of us. Because every day we look the other way while horrific injustice and abuse takes place: around the world, and right next door, and perhaps right in the next room.
"We" are all Michael Jackson in a way: terrified of the world, self-loathing, trapped in our fantasyland, yet fascinated by the glitz and the parasitic hype that surrounds us. We deify the ethically and psychologically deformed, glorify the hypocrite, mouth empty moralisms, kowtow to money and influence, regardless of its source. We want instant gratification, and we undermine serious, honest attempts at dialog, growth, and reform. And, for most, when the time comes to stand up and be counted for something worthwhile, we turn away and melt into the herd, hoping there is safety in numbers
294. Justice was the roadblock that careened his existence off the landscape- and was the failure of our society. As a society everyones needs would be better served if he was in jail right now.
330. One word can be applied to what you describe...narcissism. The root cause of the greed, excess, and avoidance of reality you describe comes from a culture which has over-indulged self-love and extreme individualism; Michael Jackson, the spectacle of reality TV, the rise of celebrity culture.
363. This is a seminal moment in human history. The Roman Empire relied too much on a standing military abroad, slaves at home, lead-tainted wine, and feeding Christians to the lions to dull its citizens to the long-term consequences of their unsustainable lifestyle. Rome's empire lasted half a millennium. Ours will be lucky to last half that long. Either we get it right now or we moonwalk our way into civilized oblivion.
373. What is good about Herbert's piece is that it does not make the mistake of blaming our decadence as a society on a loss of "family values," but rather on a tendency to indulge our fantasies about the potential for greed and unrestrained capitalism to shield us from reality. When did the American dream become a bubble designed to keep us hiding from our obligations to one another?
394. Our corporate MSM seems to be saying: "Michael Jackson was a really great entertainer and a good guy. Except for all of those children he molested."
427. The fact that he named ALL of his children after himself, girl included, is also a clue to his narcissism.
448. Michael Jackson was exploited as a child and as an adult. He in turn exploited children and some adults. He acquired 3 children by paying for them, lied that they were his biological children, and kept their heads covered so no one would know. His closest associates apparently never knew right from wrong and were unwilling to tell him "no". If he really weighed 112 pounds at death he should have been in a hospital. Obviously nobody really cared about him.
Woman pleads no contest in chips-for-sex case
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 (Associated Press)
A woman has been fined $1,142 after pleading no contest to prostitution charges after she was accused of accepting a box of chips for sex. Police said they arrested 36-year-old Lahoma Sue Smith in southeast Oklahoma City after finding her in her car with a man who told officers he knew he could find a prostitute in the area.
Smith told officers the man said he didn't have any money so she agreed to accept a $30 case of chips as payment.
The man was not charged and his name hasn't been released.
Information from: The Oklahoman, www.newsok.com
article here
Two excerpts:
One need not argue that boys and men who listen to Eminem will become rapist-murderers in order to maintain that misogynous music and lyrics play an important role in legitimating men's mistreatment of women by making it culturally acceptable and even "cool" for men to express sexist rage against women and then hide behind the pretense that "it's only a joke" if anyone takes it too seriously. That argument has long been discredited when it comes to racism. What's the difference when the oppression in question is sexism, or heterosexism?
In domestic violence advocacy, there is a term used to describe a situation where people contribute to an abusive man's behavior by their conscious actions, by their minimization of his crimes, or by their silence. It is called "colluding with the batterer." It is hard to avoid the conclusion that a society where radio stations continue to play Eminem's records, people continue to buy them, and critics continue to write about them while leaving out any condemnation of their vicious sexism, is a society that is in profound collusion with the batterer.
full article here
June 6, 2009
A Japanese software industry body has decided to ban computer games in which players simulate sexual violence against females, a spokesman said.
The industry move came after a Japanese computer game maker attracted furious protests from US rights campaigners against the game "RapeLay," which lets players simulate stalking and raping young girls.
In the game players earn points for acts of sexual violence, including following girls on commuter trains, raping virgins and their mothers, and then forcing them to have abortions.
US online retailer Amazon in February took RapeLay off its websites, but the game's Yokohama-based maker Illusion brushed off the protests, saying the game was made for the domestic market and abided by laws in Japan.
full article here