Criminal Justice
In Jordheim’s text we read about Kate’s story. Kate discusses how members of her family traffic her as she’s growing up. When she enters a recovery center she starts to reveal what happened to her over the years. She relates questions that many people would ask, such as “Why didn’t you tell someone? Why didn’t you call the police? Why didn’t you turn them in?” She says that these questions, which are forms of victim blaming are “the questions of an individual who has never been beaten, broken, and brutalized; silenced, drugged, or locked up; burned, cut, or on the hollow end of a gun barrel.” This description explains why the reporting rate is so low. States enact sex registries to protect children from sex crimes. Given Kate’s story, are sex registries useful? Are there better ways to address situations like Kate’s? What are better ways to encourage women and children to report sexual exploitation?