A review of ‘Sex Crimes’ by Alice Vachss
I have to say I was very reluctant to BUY this book. I have an aversion to things that make me uncomfortable, and the title alone does that for me.I bought it anyway, and put it on the fast-track of my reading list.
It’s not what I feared (or I’ve gotten ‘used’ to ugly things) and yet it was extremely informative, and in some places the author actually made me laugh or smile, in the context of the moment.
Here is a woman that has done everything within her power to make change, to make a difference, and has had to fight to do so. She’s had to fight a system that is archaic, a system where prejudice is rampant and openly displayed. She’s also had to fight the politics of her business, and then there’s the law.
God bless her to have the gumption to go to work every day to repeatedly face the ugly. The scenarios that she’s faced, the cases that she’s fought and won, the lives that she’s affected, and the amount of BS that she’s had to endure all the while are nothing short of… I couldn’t have done it with as much heart as she had.
The legal system is broken for these victims, the law IS to blame, but so are many of the other ‘pieces’ that make up that system – the ‘collaborators’ as she so aptly labels them. These are the people in and around the system that either discriminate, minimize, or allow these crimes to go unpunished. They include the Judges, the Defense or Prosecutors, and sometimes the investigators.
Words take on a whole new meaning here. What you think may be an open and shut case, is anything but. How some criminals use the law to their advantage is criminal in and of itself. There is no justice in a lot of what goes on – it’s more about bargaining, lessening the seriousness of the crimes, minimizing the meaning of what really took place as opposed to how counsel would present it to our juries. I’m not letting the jurors off either.
It’s shameful how ‘business’ is conducted in our court rooms, made all the more disgusting by these specific crimes and how it’s ‘dealt’ with to mede out ‘justice.’
This book doesn’t provide many answers for me, but instead it poses a lot of questions. For me it was an education on more of what’s wrong with our world. I couldn’t be more disillusioned with the facts of how this great champion of rape victims was treated, with the amount of stupidity, arrogance, and evil that she had to wade through merely to do what is right – within the confines that the law provides to these victims.
Now I understand why I’ve stayed away from politics all of my years. The system is corrupt beyond my wildest guesses. All in all, Ms. Vachss, my hat is off to you. I want to thank you for having the courage to do ‘that’ job, in the manner and under the circumstances with which you did for so long. Sometimes the good fight is the best thing you can hope for. Exposing it will be helpful, and naming the collaborators is a good start.
I am reminded of some good lawyer jokes, but here is one lawyer that is truly out for justice, who stands for the truth, not just because it’s her job, but because it’s who she is.
This is an important book – you need to read it for yourself to understand why, and you can pick out your own reasons. Thank you for writing this book, and I hope you continue to expose us to more of your world, because what you do is important and more-so, the right thing to do. But there’s also a new list of things that we need to address if there is to be justice for these victims, and it has to start with us, and now we can because of your work and what it has exposed.
© Copyright 2017 tim boehlert