An Iowa judge’s ruling this week ordering a teenage girl — who was 15 when she killed a man she said raped her multiple times — to pay his family $150,000 in restitution has reignited debate about what justice looks like for girls and young women who have experienced sexual intercourse. violence.
Pieper Lewis, who killed her alleged rapist in 2020, was granted a deferred sentence by Polk County District Judge David Porter after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and voluntary injury.
Lewis is just one of many teenagers – often of color – who have been prosecuted or convicted for killing their trafficker or sex offender in recent years in the US.
Last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom pardoned Sarah Cruzan, who was sentenced to life without parole as a teenager for killing a man who sexually abused and trafficked her in 1994.
In Wisconsin, Krystul Kizer is facing life in prison for killing the man she said forced her into prostitution. Following a state Supreme Court ruling in July, Kizer will be able to argue in court that her actions were a “direct result” of trafficking, a defense that could lead to an acquittal of the charges against her.
And in Tennessee, Cyntoia Brown was sentenced to life in prison for killing a man she paid to rape her when she was a 16-year-old trafficker. Now 32, Brown was pardoned in 2019 after spending half her life behind bars.
In response to Lewis’ decision, Brown — who is now a criminal justice reform advocate and author — told PBS Newshour, “It’s just a story that’s unfortunately become all too familiar.”
“She was a victim in this situation, not only will she have to serve time in a facility, but, over the next five years, anything she does could cause her to serve a 20-year sentence. So she’s not really free.”
Advocates like KellyMarie Meek of the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault told CNN, “Sexually assaulted and trafficked women of color who act in self-defense against the people who harmed them have not been treated well by our legal system historically.”
Iowa is not among dozens of states with a so-called safe harbor law that provides legal protections to victims of human trafficking.
“There are a disproportionate number of black and brown people who are in our criminal justice system and who are incarcerated in our jails and prisons in Iowa,” Meek said. “It’s a lot more than you would expect based on the population of people of color in Iowa. And so, it’s hard to imagine that that didn’t have something to do with it.”
The most recent data from the US National Human Trafficking Hotline identified 22,326 victims and survivors in 2020. Of those, 14,597 were sex-trafficked cases and 1,048 were sex- and labor-trafficked, or forced to work by fraud or coercion. Agricultural and domestic work are common avenues of labor trafficking, according to the hotline.
The average age of trafficking victims was 17, and the number of older ones identified by the hotline is dropping sharply. The sum of the younger victims was about the same as the number of 17-year-olds.
In her plea agreement, Lewis laid out the sequence of events leading up to the murder. She described leaving an abusive home environment and having no place to live until she was taken in by an older man who she said trafficked her and forced her to have sex with other men for money, including Brooks… She described being assaulted repeatedly. including the time I was unconscious, stating, “I suddenly realized that Mr. Brooks had once again raped me and was overcome with rage.”
Lewis faced up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter and wounding with intent. But the judge suspended those sentences on Tuesday – meaning her guilty plea could be thrown out if she completes five years of probation in a penitentiary.
The judge said restitution was mandatory under Iowa law. “This court has no discretion other than to order $150,000 in restitution payable to Mr. Brook’s estate.”
Meek said she understood the restitution order and the fact that the judge had no discretion.
“It didn’t work too badly in this case, but I don’t want to automatically swing the pendulum and say, we’re just going to get rid of it,” he said.
As outrage continues to grow over Lewis’ case, a GoFundMe campaign started by one of Lewis’ former teachers surpassed $388,000 as of Thursday afternoon. But rights activists say the case highlights a broader trend of victims of sexual abuse and trafficking being punished rather than protected by the legal system.
“I don’t think justice was served. I think justice would not have seen Pieper Lewis spend time behind bars,” Meek told CNN. “This is not the worst outcome that could happen, but it is far from the best outcome and it is certainly not justice.”
“The decision to prosecute Lewis and the subsequent sentence sends a clear message to black women, girls and transgender people – the law will not protect you – and if you stand up for yourself, you will pay a heavy price,” she said. president Marcela Howell; and CEO of the nonprofit advocacy group In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, she said in a statement after the ruling.
Experts like attorney Lindsey Ruff told CNN: “Too often, we see a tragic pattern where the criminal justice system punishes the victims of horrific crimes, rather than the true perpetrators.”
Ruff, who represented several groups in a brief supporting Kizer, said the root causes of human trafficking are complex and addressing those issues requires complex solutions.
“Many victims of trafficking – especially child victims like Chrystul or Peiper – suffer serious psychological consequences as a result of being trafficked, which can lead them to act in seemingly abnormal ways,” she said. “They may resort to self-destructive ways, such as drug use or violence, they may use self-help to defend themselves. These types of behaviors can increase the risk of – or directly lead to – contact with the criminal justice system. The causal link between victimization and criminality creates a cycle where victims are punished for their reactions to their own trauma.”
Meek also expressed concern about Lewis’ ability to manage the terms of her probation due to the severity of her injury.
“Five years [of] Probation is something that concerns me because I know that many of the ways that trauma survivors deal with their trauma are not well understood by people who have not experienced trauma, which can sometimes lead to behaviors that get people into trouble,” he said.
It’s a sentiment Brown shares as a survivor-turned-advocate.
“We have a long way to go to educate people about what it’s really like for someone who is a victim of trafficking, the life they have to live, the things they have to resort to in order to survive,” she said in the PBS NewsHour interview. “Even in states where we have mechanisms for prosecutors, for judges to be lenient, to see these individuals as traumatized young girls who need services and are not incarcerated, sometimes the people who are involved in these cases don’t necessarily see that.”
The issue is complex, and experts like Ruff say the power dynamic between the victim and their abuser must be taken into account to prevent victims from being re-injured by punishing them for self-protection.
“A constant imbalance of physical and emotional power between a victim and their abuser can lead to learned helplessness and a sense that the threat of serious injury is always present and always imminent,” Ruff said. “Abuse can erode a victim’s sense of safety to the point where they never feel safe, which can cause them to act out of fear or desperation in interactions with abusers.”
Across the U.S., children most vulnerable to sex trafficking are those living in poverty, often known to child protective services, in foster care, in generally unstable circumstances, social workers and researchers say. Many have been sexually abused as children before becoming victims.
“Our data shows that people are being exploited because traffickers know that there are certain groups of people who don’t have the support, who don’t have the ability to have accountability or justice for themselves,” Robert Beiser, director of strategic initiatives. for sex trafficking at Polaris, which operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, previously told CNN in a report on sex trafficking. “And those people who, if you take advantage of them, are much less likely to get into trouble as a trafficker or a sex buyer.”
The trauma remains for victims of sex trafficking and for teenagers like Lewis who find themselves at the point of being black, a girl and growing up in unstable environments – the road to justice is bumpy.
“Injustice and violence against Black women and young girls are reproductive and racial justice crises, whether the harm is perpetrated by a perpetrator, a police officer, or the court and criminal justice system itself,” Monica Simpson told CNN. executive director of SisterSong.
“This is yet another example of how the…
