Sex Crimes: Then and Now by Alice Vachss
Description
True crime at its truest. The woman the press described as one of America’s toughest prosecutors grippingly recounts her career as a sex crimes prosecutor trying the cases no one else would take and ground-breaking chief of the Queens [New York City] Special Victims Bureau. In the process, she offers a searing indictment of our justice system.
“My first lesson about sex-crimes prosecution was that perpetrators were not the only enemy. There is a large, more or less hidden population of what I later came to call collaborators within the criminal justice system. Whether it comes from a police officer or a defense attorney, a judge or a court clerk or a prosecutor, there seems to be a residuum of empathy for rapists that crosses all gender, class, and professional barriers. It gets expressed in different ways, from victim-bashing to jokes in poor taste, and too often it results in giving the rapist a break. The one weakness I discovered in collaborators is that they always underestimate the Resistance.”
[Book One] “Sex Crimes: Then,” named a NY Times Notable Book of the Year when it was originally published, takes us on a nightmare ride through the dark side of the human soul. As Vachss makes frighteningly clear, rehabilitation rarely works with sex offenders, who are too often released to strike again. This impassioned book will shock and enrage readers as well as challenge them to demand change.
“It’s hard to explain why, with all the hard-fought defeats I’ve faced as a prosecutor, this moment was the lowest point of my career. It felt as if I’d let the enemy inside … If there was one thing I wanted to stand for, then and all the time since, it’s that you never stop fighting evil just because it is so much easier to back down … How had I now wound up alone in a small room with exactly the self-interest and cowardice I thought I stood against?”
[Book Two] “Sex Crimes: Now” is an even better than the original spellbinding sequel. Sex Crimes Now finds Alice Vachss returning to prosecution—this time in a remote rural county. Still the same, still studying the face of evil, she insists to a jury: “I don’t have to prove motive. The motive for rape is rape,” and battles a system hell-bent on freeing a monster.
Reviews
Alice Vachss has written an extraordinary book. It is the single best book about prosecuting sex crimes in America, period. As a prosecutor, Vachss has tried over one hundred felony rape and child abuse cases and she is not shy about describing a nightmare system where the bad guys are allowed to go free and the victims are victimized again, this time by the police, prosecutors, and courts.
Nobody knows rapists better than Alice Vachss. With this book she has scored a knockout.
An impassioned account of rape victims, the criminals who terrorize them, and the legal system that too often neglects them.
A stark, passionate closing argument in Vachss’ broader case against the criminal justice system.
Did you ever read a verdict headline and wonder how justice went so far off the rails? Especially when the crimes involved sex? Alice Vachss JD used to lead the Special Victims Bureau in Queens, NY. This book shows how the machine worked — when it didn’t, why — and how creative she had to be to fight for victims. Especially when most of the justice system seems to care more about their careers than about justice.
Everyone should read this book. Even if you have never been the victim of interpersonal violence, or a crime involving sex, you need this glimpse into how the system works. You will never skim over the judge-and-attorney section of your ballot again. If you are cheerfully naive, this book will help you grow up. If you are checked out or indifferent, this book will make you show up.
And if you ever feel hopeless, as if there is no good in the world, no one willing to fight for the grievously wounded, no one able to make a difference…this book will inspire you.
When I read these books, I had a solid, empty career. These books were part of what connected me to my values, leading me to become a social worker later in life. I grew up learning how to be safe; these books helped me to be brave.
There is a world of ugly evil, and you will see it in these books — but you will also see a model of how to fight it, how to win, how to keep on fighting when you lose.