Prophet's Prey

[deelaem]

I just finished reading "Prophet's Prey" by Sam Brower, who is a private investigator that spend 7 years investigating the FLDS. This is the 4th book I've read recently by people who have either escaped from or tried to bring charges against Warren Jeffs and the FLDS.

Brower characterizes the FLDS as a massive crime syndicate, with one of their main crimes being child abuse. After all my research, I quite agree with him. What's shocking about it all is in spite of Warren Jeffs' being in prison, nothing has changed in the FLDS. He still runs things from prison through weekly meetings with his enforcer/brother, Lyle Jeffs. The polygamy and sexual abuse of minor girls continues unchecked. People are routinely thrown out of their homes and separated from their families with no hope of recourse. Cult members are rarely allowed to have needed medical care and people die from highly treatable illnesses. And as the result of all the inbreeding, many babies are born with fumarase deficiency, which often kills them or at the very least gives them life-long profound disability.

WHY is so little done with this cult? I know all the arguments about supposed freedom of religion, fear of a repeat of the Branch Davidian disaster, etc. But the evidence of the myriad of crimes that the FLDS participates in in overwhelming. And none of it has one damn thing to do with religion, that's just what they hide behind. Oh, and another thing, the members are trained and encouraged to be violent with outsiders if they deem necessary. The FLDS live completely outside the law, have a well-published anti-American agenda, and ignore legal attempts to get them to answer for their crimes. I ask you, would we put up with this from any other splinter group?

And the thing is, even breaking up the cult would be a major undertaking. They are so indoctrinated in the lies of the "Priesthood", and are so sealed off from the real world that I'm not sure they could even function outside the cult. I knew the cult was bad just from what I'd seen on TV, but now, after deep research, I'm overwhelmed by it all. It's really a disgrace of our time.

[CynicMom]

I agree completely and have a few ideas:

-Require all homeschoolers to take the same state exams as public school students. Nothing would be done with this information but it would be useful to know if, say, all 10,000 children in the FLDS town are labeled as handicapped. That would be probable cause for a CPS investigation.

-Require parents to have a birth certificate for all children on file in order to claim WIC (or any other child-related) benefit. Then you could create an automatic investigation if a 12-yr-old turned up pregnant. And you'd know they were 12 because of the birth certificate on record.

-[This one is problematic]Require children to give DNA samples to be used solely for the purpose of determining paternity so the state can reduce it's expense by having the father pay child support.

-Require all homeschooling students to file their educational progress with the state. This way they'd know if say 1/3 of the young male population stopped learning and got sent to work camps at age of 12.

-Require social security numbers for all children that are homeschooled or getting WIC benefits. Tampering with this stuff is a MEGA felony.

-Create a law that says the burden of probable cause to search a premises is granted if any of the above are not met.

I bet we could run the FLDS to ground with a combination of the above.

[pixydust]

I want to read that book! I've read the books by Elissa Wall and Caroline Jessup.

I don't know what can be done about the FLDS.....I'm still at a loss as to how all of those kids were returned when they were raided. Didn't anyone question teenagers with kids? Or notice that these kids didn't have the education or medical care that they should? It's all very frustrating.

It seems so easy to me. When 2 to 20 women are using the same address for food stamps, why isn't it being looked into? When I went on food stamps for a little while, I had to give them detailed info on who lived in my home and how much inome that they brought in. I had to include the money that my father-in-law gave us for Christmas the previous year, and tell them about the 2 cars that we had sold for bill money...why aren't the FLDS under the same type of scrutiny?

BTW, the FLDS don't homeschool, they have their own church school that the kids attend.

[emmiedahl]

I think WIC already requires that stuff.

The teenagers lied and gave conflicting reports on purpose to make the investigation useless. No one could even remember whose baby belonged to whom apparently. :roll:

[Kelya]

I also heard that a lot of people left CPS and other organizations after the raid because it was handled so poorly and they knew kids were going back to abusive situations. That was in the epilogue to Elissa Wall's book but I haven't confirmed it with other situations.

It really is a giant clusterfuck and horrifying.