Photo by American-Spectator-splainer Ben Stein by Flickr user murraystateuniversity. Used under a Creative Commons license.

According to his Wikipedia Entry Paul Bernardo, the Canadian boy scout, economics student, accountant, and Amway distributor(!!) benefitted from the same attitudes that asshole enabler and conservative performance artist Ben Stein wants us all to grant to the recently-arrested former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. (Emphasis mine.)

Investigation and release

Between May and September 1990, the police had submitted more than 130 suspects' samples for DNA testing when they received two reports that the person they were seeking was Paul Bernardo. The first, in June, had been called in by a bank employee. The second call was received from Tina Smirnis, the wife of one of the three Smirnis brothers who were among Bernardo's closest friends. Smirnis told the detectives that Bernardo "had been 'called in' on a previous rape investigation — once in December, 1987 - but he had never been interviewed." He frequently talked about his sex life to Smirnis and liked analingus, rough sex and anal sex.

Alex Smirnis' phrasing was awkward and stilted and consequently left the detectives unsure of whether to take him seriously. But after cross-checking several files the detectives decided to interview Bernardo. The interview, on November 20, 1990, lasted 35 minutes and Bernardo voluntarily gave samples for forensic testing. When the detectives asked Bernardo why he thought he was being investigated for the rapes, he admitted that he did resemble the composite. The detectives concluded that such a well-educated, well-adjusted, congenial young man couldn't be responsible for the vicious crimes; he "was far more credible than...Alex Smirnis who, with his awkward, strange way of speaking, might just be trying to collect the reward." Paul Bernado was released the following day.

Source: Bernardo's Wikipedia Entry

Oh well, as Ben Stein and his approving publishers at The American Spectator would no-doubt say, "Can anyone tell me any boy-scout/accountant/Amway guys who have been convicted of violent sex crimes?"

Although of course I'm sure he meant other than Paul Bernardo.

Hat tip Soren in comments

Photo of suspect's home via The Seattle Times. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Sara Jean Green says committing one or more felonies and misdemeanors may have saved the life of a woman who works just a half mile from me.

On the face of it you wouldn't expect the following paragraph to be triggery. And it won't be at all clear what crimes the woman absolutely, certainly committed. But that'll mostly be because there's no surrounding context.

As they drove to Tacoma, the woman became concerned for her safety and asked him to stop for cigarettes. While out of the car, the woman sent a text message to her boyfriend with the vehicle's license-plate number. She also texted that she was going with a man who lived in Tacoma, and requested that her boyfriend call police if he didn't hear from her by midnight.

Source: The Seattle Times, April

Care to guess what's wrong with the above picture?

Well, for starters, the woman's a street/subsistence prostitute who works along a notorious (and notoriously dangerous!) section of highway that runs near my neighborhood. So that in itself would be one crime, though probably a misdemeanor.
Sex-worker Pickup Location via Google Maps

Another more serious crime would be conspiracy, as evidenced by her communicating information about her prostitution activities to another party.  I'm not sure about Washington State (ironically) but in many jurisdictions, if she shares expenses and/or provides any support for the boyfriend she communicated with then he can legally be considered her pimp and be prosecuted for it.  (Of course he actually could be her pimp, but wouldn't have to be to face charges.)

So those are just some of the crimes and misdemeanors the woman committed.

In this case, though, she's really not likely to be charged because...

Her customer in this case seems to have a habit of kidnapping prostitutes, dragging them to a specially-prepared dungeon in a mobile home, and then torturing them.  And (police are concerned) possibly murdering them.

In this woman's case he changed his tune only after she showed him the photo of his license plate in her cell-phone outbox.  Which, remember, in other circumstances would be considered evidence of various crimes.

But here's the real kicker, from the same Seattle Times article (emphasis mine)

On Wednesday, Seattle police appealed for other potential victims to come forward. Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said detectives "believe there are more" victims, but think people may be reluctant to contact police because of possible drug use and involvement in prostitution.

"We're overlooking that because this guy is so dangerous," Whitcomb said. "We're more concerned about the serious, violent crimes of kidnapping, rape and torture."

Got that?  Under normal circumstances a prostitute who takes the same elementary precautions a young woman or man leaving a frat party with a hook-up might take they'd ordinarily be putting themselves and the recipient at risk of prosecution.  But this time the police want to make an exception.

Gee, I wonder if that could be just one more reason serial killers and other predators might single out street prostitutes?  Gee, do you wonder?

Gee, I sure am glad that prostitution is illegal!  Because...

• Otherwise prostitutes who were kidnapped, raped, tortured in a trailer-home dungeon, and then either escaped or were released could go to the fucking cops instead of keeping quiet about it!!!
• Otherwise prostitutes could just routinely text contact info and license-plate photos to their friends, fellow sex-workers, or boyfriends without risking prosecution if they're caught!!!
• For that matter, otherwise prostitutes could just routinely text contact and license-plate info to the cops!

And then where would we be?!?!

Actually I think it's pretty fucking appalling that the human being in question had to risk additional jail time in order to protect herself, and even more so that other human beings have and may continue to fare far, far worse because they didn't.

@#$%!%

As always I'm pretty sour on prostitution for the same reason I'm down on all forms of transactional sex.  But living in the heart of serial-killer country, as I do, and living literally blocks from the last place too many sex workers have been last seen alive precisely because their work is illegal, I think it's pretty fucking atrocious that it continues to be illegal in the face of ongoing slaughter.

Did I just say @#$%!%?  I believe I did.

From CBS News Early Show website, about alleged Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell. (Emphasis mine.)

[Early Show host Harry] Smith read a statement from a woman who escaped from Sowell’s house after, the woman says, Sowell started to try to choke her. The woman said Sowell remarked, “You’re just another crack (blank) from the street. No one will know if you’re missing.“

Read the quote in context here.

What pisses me off is he was right. Smith interviews the mother of a woman, Tanya Charmichael, who disappeared from Sowell’s neighborhood a year ago. When she tried to report her daughter missing she says police joked that “Oh, go home, she’ll show up by Christmas, after the drugs are all gone.” Oh, and refused to take the report.

I don’t know if there’s much we can do about substance dependency problems, which Charmichael evidently had. And I don’t know if we can do much about whatever it is that makes people become serial killers either. And I don’t know if maybe another 3,000 years of experimentation with law enforcement might finally make prostitution go away.

What I do know, though, is that there’s a class of people — street or subsistence prostitutes — that’s extraordinarily vulnerable to predation because a) nobody cares but also b) even though “nobody cares,” the work they do is still illegal and so c) they are obliged to avoid, lie to, and generally invite the contempt of the people who would most be likely to protect them.

I talk a lot about legalizing prostitution, not because I think it’s hunky-dory. I don’t. In particular, as I’ve mentioned repeatedly, I believe it reinforces the idea of male sexual scarcity and heterosexuality as inherently transactional, and those are enormously destructive not only to women but to heterosexual men.

Instead I talk about legalizing it because here in the Pacific Northwest, including locations just a mile or so from my house, serial killers are known to have gathered and murdered something like four hundred human beings since the 1980s. And nearly all of them were street/subsistance prostitutes who were chosen expressly because their killers knew of, and typically shared, society and law-enforcement’s distain for them.

So when I talk about legalizing prostitution, again, it’s not because I think it’s just hunky-dory. It’s because I think it’s the only way to start transforming society’s relationship with an extraordinarily vulnerable population… and to transform that population’s relationship with society.

(Via Google Alerts on the term “serial killer”)