Tradition forces girls into prostitution

Editor's note: In some Indian villages, girls are sent into prostitution by their families - a tradition that began as religious obligation but is now continued for money. In "Trapped by Tradition," which airs Saturday and Sunday on CNN International, (viewing times below) "Slumdog Millionaire" star Anil Kapoor shows how Indian charities are trying to stop the tradition. CNN has changed Priya and Puja's names.

Bharatpur District, India - She's around 13 years old. She goes to school, loves to sing and dance, and between giggles, she says she dreams of being an actress one day.

Puja hardly looks like a fighter but beneath her smiling face is a steely resolve. She is the first girl in her family to go to school and is determined to finish it. Very few girls in her community have done that.

Puja's mother wasn't given that chance. Priya, now in her late 30s, was forced into prostitution when she was a young girl.

Stories like this are common in the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan state in Western India, where girls are sold to brothels, once they hit puberty.

Locals mark this rite of passage with a coming of age ceremony called Nathni Utarna – which translates as taking off the nose ring - that signifies a girl is ready to be sent into the sex trade, that she's considered ready to sleep with her first client.

Plan India, a charity working in the village to wipe out the tradition, says these ceremonies were once common but now it's getting harder to find families to admit they held one.

Ask Anil Kapoor your question

Indian film star Anil Kapoor, as a patron of Plan India, said: "A lot of the rehabilitated women are ensuring that the girls from their families don't get thrown into the practice.

"It's a small step, but one in the right direction. Changing the mindset of the people in the village is key.

"Now that the women themselves are taking a stand against prostitution, I am hopeful, optimistic, we can end this tradition.

He took a CNN Freedom Project crew to the village in Bharatpur district where Puja showed us the progress.

Often, young girls are pushed into the sex business by their own fathers and brothers. The men see nothing wrong with it.

They say it is a tradition that has been passed down through generations. It began with the devdasi culture (devdasi means servant of God).

Under the devdasi system, girls were dedicated to a life of sex work in the name of religion.

Initially, they would serve upper class men in the local community. The girls would entertain princes and landlords with song and dance.

Gradually, this gave way to a life of prostitution. Many women, like Priya, end up in the red light districts of India's major cities.

Money is key. In the sleepy village some residents make money from farming and others are daily wage laborers. But there is very little money.

It's an area of extreme poverty – so sending a daughter into the sex business is seen as a way for parents to unburden themselves of a child -and, it's lucrative.

A former prostitute told CNN she would earn as much as $20 a day working in New Delhi's red light district. It's a lot of money for families in this area, many of whom live on less than a dollar a day.

Priya works in a New Delhi brothel. She lives there for a few months, earns handsomely and then returns to her village for a few weeks to spend time with her family.

She says she continues to work as a prostitute because she does not want her children to follow in her footsteps. "What we did, we don't want our children to do that," says Priya. "It should not happen to anyone."

Plan India and its local partner, Gram Niyojan Kendra, are bringing change to Priya's village -and she wants Puja to benefit from that.

Officials at the charities say they are making inroads; that the practice of sending girls into prostitution is gradually declining.

Plan India has recently opened four new schools in the area, and they are full of students.

"It's difficult to get women who are already in the sex trade to quit, because they get used to the income," says Bhagyashri Dengle, Plan India's executive director.

So the group focuses on preventing young children from falling into the same trap. Education is the key to change, says Dengle.

They offer counseling to the women and encourage them to find other ways of earning money. In some cases, Plan India-GNK helps them start a small business such helping to buy a cow so the woman can then sell milk.

Puja says she's delighted she's going to school. It gives her a sense of purpose and confidence.

When Kapoor and CNN visited her village, it was Puja who showed us around.

She proudly took us on a tour of the schools in the area. Small, bright classrooms that were packed with students and bursting with hope.

For Puja, the hope is she won't get trapped by tradition and is able realize her dreams - to finish school and to make her mother proud.

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Nicholson says crime bill not based on 'latest stats'

CTVNews.ca Staff

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson cast aside criticism Tuesday that the government's new justice bill doesn't have a clear price tag and ignores trends that show crime rates are actually decreasing.

The government's so-called "omnibus" bill wraps up nine individual pieces of legislation into one, and aims to toughen sentences for drug traffickers, child sexual predators and repeat violent young offenders.

"People who shouldn't be on the street will be off the street, and this bill puts the rights of victims at the forefront," Nicholson said on CTV's Power Play.

"This is something that Canadians support, and we made it very clear in the last election that this was the direction we were going."

"This is something that Canadians support, and we made it very clear in the last election that this was the direction we were going."

The Safe Streets and Communities Act has been cast as the Conservative government's key fall piece of legislation, and Nicholson hopes it will be passed quickly through the House of Commons.

However, critics of the tough-on-crime approach pointed to statistics that show crime has actually decreased in Canada, along with other Western nations, in recent years.

Several key groups, including the Canadian Bar Association and the Canadian Pediatric Society, which represents doctors, said that the bill is the wrong way to proceed.

"The impact on northern residents, aboriginal people and people with mental illness will be especially profound," said the CBA's Dan MacRury in a press release.

"The CBA believes that the bill will make already serious criminal justice system problems much worse, with huge resource implications."

In the United States, for example, some officials are aiming to get rid of mandatory minimum sentences that have led to overcrowded jails and crippling incarceration costs.

While Nicholson acknowledged that some crime rates have dropped, he noted that instances of drug crime and child pornography have increased in recent years.

Nicholson added that the government doesn't "put price tags in legislation" and that much of the price of crime is borne by victims.

"We're not governing on the basis of the latest statistics," Nicholson said at a news conference, held earlier in the day near Toronto.

"We're governing on the basis of what's right to better protect victims and law-abiding Canadians."

Some of the bill's key points include:

• The elimination of house arrest for those convicted of serious, violent and property crimes such as sexual assault, human trafficking, arson, break-and-enter, luring a child or kidnapping.
• Victims of terrorism will be allowed to sue perpetrators and supporters of terror, including listed foreign states.
• The amount of time required before a convict can apply for a pardon will be extended, and pardons will be renamed "record suspension."
• Adults convicted of sexual crimes against children will face increased sentences.
• Two new offences will be created to take aim at conduct that "could facilitate the sexual abuse of a child."
• Those convicted of producing or trafficking illegal drugs will face tougher sentences as an attempt to crack down on organized crime.

Nicholson said that more justice bills are on the way, including refined legislation on citizen's arrest and self-defence.

The government will also amend the International Transfer of Offenders Act to ensure Canada has the final say before Canadians convicted of crimes abroad are sent home. And parole boards will also be given greater authority to extend detention for individuals who pose a risk to society.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae quickly lashed out at the omnibus bill, saying crime statistics have been going down in Canada and there is no need to bring in new and tougher laws that will only result in more people being sent to prison.

Rae vowed to fight the Conservatives over the issue.

"We intend to do direct battle with the Conservatives on this issue because we don't believe it is a crime prevention agenda, we do not believe it is an increased public safety agenda and we don't think it will withstand public scrutiny."

Rae pointed out that the Conservatives have not issued an estimate for the cost of enacting the new bill.

The Canadian Paediatric Society also expressed their disapproval for the bill. They say that changing the youth crime law to allow stiffer sentences for children as young as 14 will have significant negative consequences.

The group, which represents Canadian paediatricians, says the current Youth Crime Justice Act supports rehabilitation and reintegration, instead of putting the emphasis on incarceration.

They say the federal government should work with provincial and territorial governments on youth crime prevention strategies that would include early detection and treatment of mental and behavioural health issues that might lead to criminal activity.

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The Collapse of American Criminal Justice System

by Fabius Maximus

Summary:   Occasionally a book so well describes important trends for our nation that becomes a must-read for all Americans.   Such as The Collapse of American Criminal Justice by William J. Stuntz (Harvard University Press, 2011).  This post gives a brief excerpt to show its importance.  Please buy or borrow a copy.  This is part one in a series; also see tomorrow's part two!

Contents

1. The publisher's description
2. Introduction:  the rule of too much law
3. Excerpt from section I: Crime and Punishment
4. For more information about our criminal justice system

 (1)  The publisher's description

The Collapse of American Criminal Justice by William J. Stuntz (Harvard University Press, 2011)

The rule of law has vanished in America's criminal justice system. Prosecutors now decide whom to punish and how severely. Almost no one accused of a crime will ever face a jury. Inconsistent policing, rampant plea bargaining, overcrowded courtrooms, and ever more draconian sentencing have produced a gigantic prison population, with black citizens the primary defendants and victims of crime. In this passionately argued book, the leading criminal law scholar of his generation looks to history for the roots of these problems — and for their solutions.

The Collapse of American Criminal Justice takes us deep into the dramatic history of American crime—bar fights in nineteenth-century Chicago, New Orleans bordellos, Prohibition, and decades of murderous lynching. Digging into these crimes and the strategies that attempted to control them, Stuntz reveals the costs of abandoning local democratic control. The system has become more centralized, with state legislators and federal judges given increasing power. The liberal Warren Supreme Court's emphasis on procedures, not equity, joined hands with conservative insistence on severe punishment to create a system that is both harsh and ineffective.

What would get us out of this Kafkaesque world? More trials with local juries; laws that accurately define what prosecutors seek to punish; and an equal protection guarantee like the one that died in the 1870s, to make prosecution and punishment less discriminatory. Above all, Stuntz eloquently argues, Americans need to remember again that criminal punishment is a necessary but terrible tool, to use effectively, and sparingly.

(2)  Introduction:  the rule of too much law

Among the great untold stories of our time is this one:  the last half of the twentieth century saw America's criminal justice system unravel.  this book seeks to address two questions.  First, how did the unraveling happen?  And second, how might out dysfunctional justice system be repaired?  Answering the first question goes some distance toward answering the second.

Signs of the unraveling are everywhere.  The nation's record-shattering prison population has grown out of control.  Still more so the African American portion of that prison population:  for black males, a term in the nearest penitentiary has become an ordinary life experience, a horrifying truth that wasn't true a mere generation ago.  Ordinary life experiences are poor deterrents, one reasons why massive levels of criminal punishment coexist with historically high levels of urban violence.

Outside the South, most cities' murder rates are a multiple of the rates in those same cities sixty years ago — notwithstanding a large drop in violent crime in the 1990s.  Within cities, crime is low in safe neighborhoods but remains a huge problem in dangerous ones, and those dangerous neighborhoods are disproportionately poor and black.  Last but not least, we have built a justice system that strikes many of its targets as widely unjust.  The feeling has some evidentiary support  criminal litigation regularly makes awful mistakes, as the frequent DNA-based exonerations of convicted defendants illustrate.  Evidently, the criminal justice system is doing none of its jobs well:  producing justice, avoiding discrimination, protecting those who most need the law's protection, keeping crime in check while maintaining reasonable limits on criminal punishment.

It was not always so.  For much of American history — again, outside the South — criminal justice institutions punished sparingly, mostly avoided the worst forms of discrimination, controlled crime effectively, and, for the most part, treated those whom the system targets fairly.  the justice system was always flawed, and injustices always happened.  Nevertheless, one might fairly say that criminal justice worked.  it doesn't anymore.

There are three keys to the system's dysfunction, each of which has deep historical roots but all of which took hold in the last sixty years.

First, the rule of law collapsed.  To a degree that had not been true in America's past, official discretion rather than legal doctrine or juries' judgements came to define criminal justice outcomes.

Second, discrimination against both black suspects and black crime victims grew steadily worse — oddly, in any age of rising legal protection for civil rights.  Today, black drug offenders are punished in great numbers, even as white drug offenders are usually ignored.  (As is usually the case with respect to American crime statistics, Latinos fall in between, but generally closer tot he white population than to the black one.)  At the same time, blacks victimized by violent felonies regularly see violence go unpunished; the story is different in most white neighborhoods.

The third the end ist he least familiar:  a kind of pendulum justice took hold in the 20th century's second half, as America's justice system first saw a sharp decline in the prison population — in the midst of a record-setting crime wave — then saw that population rise steeply.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the US had one of the most lenient justice systems in the world.  By century's end, that justice system was the harshest in the history of democratic government.

Take these three trends in turn.  As drivers on our highways know well, American law often means something other than what it says.  Roadside signs define the speed limit, or appear to do so:  65 or 70 miles per hour on well-built highways, 25 or 30 on local roads in residential areas, something in between for local highways and main roads in business districts.  … In the US posted limits don't define the maximum speed of traffic; they define the minimum speed.  So who or what determines the real speed limits, the velocity above which drivers risk traffic tickets or worse?  The answer is whatever police force patrols the relevant road.  Law enforcers — state troopers and local cops — define the laws they enforce.

The power to define the law on the street allows the police to do two things they otherwise couldn't.  First, state troopers can be selectively severe, handing out fines for driving at speeds no higher than most cars on the road.  Second, those same state troopers can use traffic stops to investigate other crimes, stopping cars in other to ask permission to search for illegal drugs.

… Because nearly all drivers violate traffic laws, those laws have ceased to function on the nation's highways and local roads.  Too much law amounts to no law at all:  when laws make everyone an offender, the relevant offenses have no meaning independent of law enforcers' will.  The formal rule of law yields the functional rule of official discretion.

… why worry about such small problems?  Because the character of traffic enforcement is not so different from the ways in which police officers and prosecutors battle more serious crimes.  The consequence is a disorderly legal order, and a discriminatory one.

(3)  Excerpt from section I:  Crime and Punishment

In 2008, the imprisonment rate was more than three-and-a-half times that older historical record.

… The wave of incarceration that produced those numbers extended nationwide: in every region, imprisonment at least tripled in the twentieth century's second half. In some jurisdictions, the increase was much larger. In 1950, 77 of every 100,000 Texans were housed in stat penitentiaries; by 2000, the figure was 730. Massachusetts' imprisonment rate rose from a mere 32 in 1972 to 278 in 1997. Between 1973 and 2003, Mississippi's imprisonment rate rose from 76 to 763.

… If the general imprisonment rat is high, the rate of black incarceration can fairly be called astronomical. The black imprisonment rate for 2000 [1,830 per 100,000] exceeds by one-fourth the imprisonment rate in the Soviet Union in 1950 — near the end of Stalin's reign, the time when the population of Soviet prison camps peaked. If jail inmates are included, per capital black incarceration is 80 percent higher than the rate at which Stalin's regime banished its subjects to the Gulag's many camps.

(4)  For more information about our criminal justice system

1. An opportunity to look in the mirror, to more clearly see America, 10 November 2009 — About our prisons
2. Nixon declared war on drugs, a major investment of America in itself – but one that's gone bad, 21 May 2010
3. The Feds decide who to lock up for life (not just at Guantanamo), another nail in the Constitution's coffin, 2 June 2010
4. Being a third world nation is a state of mind, as we will learn (about prison rape), 19 March 2011

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DOJ Running 17 Law Enforcement Civil-Rights Probes: Most Ever

The Obama administration is stepping up civil rights enforcement against local police nationwide, opening,  investigations to determine whether officers are guilty of brutality or discrimination against minorities. the Washington Post reports. In recent months, the Justice Department has begun inquiries into major city police departments like Portland, Or., where officers shot several people who had mental health issues, and Seattle, where police were accused of gunning down a homeless Native American woodcarver. The department issued a scathing report this month accusing Puerto Rico police of a "staggering level of crime and corruption.''

Justice's Civil Rights Division is conducting 17 probes of police and sheriff departments — the largest number in its 54-year history. The investigations are civil, meaning they will not lead to criminal charges, but can result in court-enforced reforms. The effort has won praise from advocacy groups and experts on police brutality. "This is long overdue,'' said Deborah Vagins of the American Civil Liberties Union. "The Bush administration beyond dropped the ball. These are some of the most egregious situations, places where we have killings committed by officers.''

By Jerry Markon

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Southern California Criminal Defense Lawyers Say DUI Crackdown Defendants Must Act Fast to Protect Rights

Joshua Newstat and Jeremy Lessem, veteran Southern California criminal defense attorneys, today reminded those arrested in the state's recent, two-week Labor Day DUI crackdown that they need to act quickly to engage legal help to fight their charges.

"Once a police officer stops a DUI suspect, everything that happens afterwards will go into the criminal case being built against that defendant," said Newstat, an experienced Ventura DUI defense attorney and partner of Lessem & Newstat, LLP.

"People charged with DUI have a more difficult road ahead if they do not move immediately to defend themselves and preserve their rights," he said.

Lessem, a seasoned Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer who, along with Newstat has successfully fought drunk-driving cases on behalf of clients across the state, said a DUI suspect's first move is to request a hearing from the DMV.

This should happen within 10 days of receipt of the license suspension or revocation order that accompanies the DUI charge.

"The DMV hearing, which every DUI suspect is entitled to, can result in the license-suspension order being set aside if the defendant can show there is no basis for the order," Lessem said. "We've helped make this happen.

"A DUI charge is not an automatic conviction," Lessem continued. "There are many extenuating circumstances that can keep a suspect from being found guilty, and each one should be considered and explored on the defendant's behalf."

Law enforcement officers from 100 agencies in Southern California arrested 2,795 people for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs between Friday, August 19, and Labor Day on September 5. The same agencies will renew their "AVOID the 100" DUI campaign for the Halloween and Thanksgiving holidays.

California has some of the most severe penalties for DUI convictions in the country, according to Newstat said.

"That's why a person should never face a DUI arrest alone," he said. "Regardless of the circumstances of the arrest, it is vitally important that those arrested for drunk driving go into court with a legal professional who can provide a proper DUI defense."

"An attorney backed by an experienced law firm can help a defendant avoid a conviction or mitigate the costly and damaging legal penalties that may be applied in the event of a guilty verdict," added Lessem. "Proper legal help is an absolute must for anyone facing a DUI charge."

Printed by, PRWEB.COM Newswire

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Judge: Anthony must pay nearly $98,000 for probe of dead daughter

Casey Anthony owes authorities just under $98,000 for the costs of investigating the disappearance of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, in 2008, a Florida judge ruled Thursday.

The decision means prosecutors are set to recoup less than one-fifth of the more than $516,000 that they had sought. The state had argued that if it were not for the 25-year-old Orlando woman's lies, investigators wouldn't have had to expend the time and money to find her daughter's body.

They searched for five months, eventually finding Caylee's skeletal remains in woods less than a mile from her grandparents' Orlando home.

Orange County Superior Court Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr. found Anthony is liable for expenses incurred from July 15, 2008, when Caylee was reported missing, to September 29 of that year, when authorities ended their missing-person case and opened a homicide investigation.

But she was not ordered to pay back investigative costs -- as the state had requested -- incurred between September 30 and December 19, 2008. The latter is the date when Caylee's remains were positively identified, eight days after they were found.

While it doesn't agree fully with the ruling, the Orange County state attorney's office does not plan any more action to try to recoup money from Anthony, spokesman Randy Means said.

"We're disappointed that our theory wasn't substantiated by the judge, but we will live with the results of the ruling," Means added. "We're pleased ... that some of the money will be returned to the taxpayers. Unfortunately, it wasn't anywhere close to what the state agencies thought they were due."

A jury acquitted Anthony in July on murder and other charges related to her daughter's death. At the same time, she was convicted on three lesser charges of misleading authorities in the case.

Anthony's attorneys admitted she lied to authorities during the search for her daughter, saying she knew the girl was dead. Her attorneys have claimed that young Caylee died accidentally.

There was no immediate reaction to the ruling from Anthony's camp. But at a hearing earlier this month, one of her lawyers, J. Cheney Mason, characterized the effort to make his client pay as unfair, given her acquittal on the most serious charge of murder.

"What about the justice for the defense that we won?" Mason said, contending the prosecution wanted reimbursement for crimes that had nothing to do with those for which Anthony was convicted.

In his ruling Thursday, Perry granted $61,505.12 to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for "costs ... reasonably related to the investigative work provided as a result of (Anthony) providing false information as to the location of her daughter, Caylee Anthony, and making other false misrepresentations."

For the same reasons, $10,283.90 will go toward the Metropolitan Surveillance Bureau "for electronic surveillance costs from July 22, 2008, through September 29, 2008," the judge determined.

And the Orange County Sheriff's Office is to be reimbursed $25,837.96 for its costs during that time. But that figure could rise.

Perry stated that some expense reports from that office "were not adequately broken down in order to determine the work performed (between) July 15, 2008, through September 29, 2008." He requested that 30 individuals submit revised reports by September 19, after which he could order Anthony to pay back more.

Perry denied requests from the state attorney's office for reimbursement of its costs, beyond $50 "for the costs of prosecution of the (three) misdemeanor convictions."

In sum, the judge on Thursday ordered Anthony to pay authorities $97,626.98.

By the CNN Wire Staff

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101-Year-Old Woman Evicted From Home Allowed to Return Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/09/14/101-year-old-woman-evicted-from-home-allowed-to-return/#ixzz1Y1Zi8glc

DETROIT –  A 101-year-old woman who was evicted from her longtime Detroit home after her 65-year-old son failed to pay the mortgage is getting it back, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said Wednesday.

Texana Hollis was evicted Monday and her belongings were placed outside the home where she had lived for nearly six decades. Her son Warren Hollis said he didn't pay the bill for several years and disregarded eviction notices.

"I screwed it up good," he told the Detroit Free Press.

HUD foreclosed on the property after Warren Hollis failed to pay property taxes to maintain a reverse mortgage taken out in 2002.

HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan told The Detroit News on Wednesday that the department would pay the taxes, remove the padlocks from the doors and let Texana Hollis return to the home.

"We were absolutely thunderstruck when we understood that a 101-year-old woman was put out of her home," Sullivan told the Free Press.

Sullivan said the department has told family members that Hollis can return to the house as soon as she is released from Henry Ford Hospital, where she was taken after the eviction.

Warren Hollis said he and his mother were "overjoyed" at the word from HUD.

"It boosted her spirits quite a bit," he said

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