Reflections of a Middle-Aged Woman

Yes, according to Gail Sheehy, the 60’s are the new middle age.  That aside, what I want to reflect on here is what happened to that wide-eyed, twenty-something young woman I used to be who protested the war in Vietnam and marched for civil rights and actually believed that people could change the world for the better? When did I stop believing the world was full of promise and hope?  Did I want to become this cynical? No, I did not! But here I am just the same.

I believe in God.  I clutch onto that belief with a death grip because it is the only path I see that still leads to wonder.  Without wonder life is boring, riddled with anxieties and fears and disappointments.  “All is futile,” Solomon tells us, “a chasing after the wind.”  Remember back to childhood when everything was new?   “Look,” my grandson cried out excitedly when he was three from his car seat looking out the window, “a red car!”  A few seconds later, “Look,”  just as excitedly, “a cow! “  That phase passes all too quickly.  We become jaded.  But there is still wonder in the world, you just have to look harder for it.  My husband and I just returned from a trip to the Cotswold’s in England.  I felt a sense of wonder driving along one-tract country roads past bucolic scenes of green rolling hills dotted with sheep grazing.  It was like a slice of heaven.   “To see a world in a grain of sand, a heaven in a wildflower” William Blake says. 

Back in my “normal” life after our all too brief idyllic vacation, I was assaulted with the news of the world- and none of it good of course.  Good news doesn’t sell so we rarely hear about it.  In the weeks after we returned a violent freak storm hit shutting down power to thousands in our city in the middle of one of the worst heat waves, gas prices reached another all-time high, new information on the Penn State child molestation case against Sandusky had come to light, Iran was making threats again, the national debt was still climbing and our politicians were still running smear campaigns against each other.  

I know it’s an election year, but does that mean all other problems go on hold while we focus on hidden bank accounts and birth certificates?  When did American politics sink to this appalling level?  When did candidate debates revolve around character assassination instead of their respective plans for running the country?  That’s what I want to hear.  I could care less about the rest of it.  Since when did a candidate’s morals mean so much to us anyway?  Was there ever a bigger womanizer than JFK?  Yet he’s a national icon.  The Kennedys are our version of American royalty.  Even the campaign ads are an insult to our intelligence.  Here’s a my hypothetical example of the childish depths our leaders have sunk to:  A candidate is making a speech at a rally and says something like, “I hate American’s who lie and cheat and think they are above the law.  If I’m elected I will change that!”  The opposition then runs an ad that plays only a small portion of that speech taken out of context, like “I hate Americans.” The ad then goes on to say, “Why would you elect a President who feels this way about his fellow Americans?”  There’s more and more of this trickery going on, truth is now so elusive in politics that it is virtually nonexistent.  

Here’s what really bugs me – why does anyone believe that a politian of any ilk who is running for office, whether Republican or Democrat, presidential candidate, congressman or senator, speaks the truth?  Is there even one naïve person out there over the age of ten who really believes that?  And if not, why in hell aren’t we protesting the lies and deceptions coming from both sides?  We are more concerned with loyalty to a particular party or ideology than demanding changes be made in the entire system

Isn’t that what this president campaigned on- hope and change?  Why do I look around and still see business as usual in Washington?  “Let’s pass the healthcare bill and then read it,” our speaker of the house tells us.

The U.S. Supreme Court, by the admission of several members, failed to read the law before ruling on it. Give me a break! This is NOT about liberalism versus capitalism. It’s about blatant corruption on every level. Our system of government is broken! It has been for a long time. When are we going to wake up and do something about it? Even in the unlikely event that someone with character is elected to office, once they get to Washington D.C. they get swept up in the graft and greed and the buying and selling of favors. It’s like a modern day Babylon. It needs to be taken down and rebuilt from the bottom up. And therein lies the root cause of my cynicism. I don’t believe people in general in our society today care enough to do anything about it. They are more concerned with making their own life more comfortable. They are too busy to be concerned with what’s going on somewhere else. They would rather just turn on the news and delude themselves that the media is actually telling them the truth. Does anyone really believe in the fairy tale of “fair and balanced” news reporting anymore? People today are like those sheep we saw in the Cotswold’s, following whomever says what they want to hear, ignoring the obvious evidence that we as a country are sliding further and further into ruin.

If only I could believe again in the power of a protest march.  But alas, I do not.  So I hold out for wonder.  I believe it is there if we but have eyes to see it. And it keeps me going when I do.

Women of the Street

(Article published in Street Speech by the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless) 

If you drive at night around the Hilltop area of Columbus or East Broad or East Main you will see them- women who are working the streets.  Human trafficking is second only to drug trafficking in America.  National statistics on prostitution are alarming:  96% of women who become prostitutes begin as youthful runaways.  33% enter prostitution before the age of 15, and 62 % before the age of 18 (many, some right here in Columbus, have histories of being sold by their parents to support a drug habit).  82% are physically assaulted, 68% have been raped while working, and 27% by multiple assailants.  83% of women have been threatened with a weapon.  75% of women who work as prostitutes will attempt suicide.  The average life expectancy of a women engaged in prostitution is age 34 and almost all the women who work in this trade are addicted to drugs and alcohol.  In Columbus, Ohio approximately 1,200 women year face solicitation charges, while the johns remain in the shadows. 

Most communities are not prepared to address the complex needs of these women, including chemical dependency, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injuries from frequent beatings, homelessness, estrangement from families, loss of children taken into custody by social services, and a lack of education and vocational training.  However, women here in Columbus charged with prostitution are receiving a unique opportunity to address their plethora of needs through an innovative docket court run by a very special judge. 

Judge Paul Herbert of Franklin County Municipal Court, after years of listening to the stories of the women who appeared before him in court, became convinced that their stories were not stories about choice, but of survival.  He says, “I used to be one of those people who said it [prostitution] was a victimless crime- that’s not true.”  Most, he found, had a history of childhood abuse and poverty.  Young girls run away from home to escape, but once on the street they often fall victim to “dope boys” (the term that has replaced “pimp) who exploit them, drawing them into the violent world of human trafficking, addiction, and dehumanization.  These women are typically arrested repeatedly.  They clog the courts, overflow the jails and cost the taxpayer a considerable sum.  Thus in August of 2009 Judge Herbert decided to try a different approach to the problem.  He joined with other groups like Doma International, which seeks to break the orphan cycle by empowering women to care for themselves and their children around the world, and Amethyst, a local residential program for women and their children transitioning out of homelessness, substance abuse and domestic violence.  He put together a community support team with training and experience working with trauma victims and chemical dependency and created an innovative alternative approach to help women caught up in this cycle.  Now women who face solicitation charges in a Columbus, Ohio courtroom are offered a choice between jail time (between 30 days to six months), or the opportunity to enter the Changing Actions to Habits Program (CATCH),  a voluntary two-year program. 

The CATCH program provides a chance for recovery.  The majority are referred to Amethyst Inc. because it is a long-term treatment program, there is no quick fix to the multiplicity of issues these woman must address, not the least of which is not having any concept of any other kind of life.  Nanon Morrison, Development Director at Amethyst said, “Our program is unique because women are usually in it for an average of two to three years, or longer.  Besides getting substance abuse treatment, the women receive treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and take parenting classes. ” The CATCH program also requires the women to wear an ankle bracelet with a GPS so authorities know where they are at all times.  They must agree to be drug tested on a regular basis, have curfews, and must comply with stay away zones (areas of the city they must avoid).  Participants must also appear each Thursday in court to report their progress. 

Judge Herbert explains the goals of the program this way: “I’m not minimizing the fact that they have committed a crime, in fact, I’m pretty tough when I need to be to separate them from whatever is causing them to backslide or relapse.  I’ll put them in jail-  I have no qualms about that.  What I am attempting to do here, what this experiment is trying to do, is to build up the personal accountability of the individual, yet also exact restorative justice in the process so the end result is a more self-sufficient citizen who is giving back to the community.”

For women who complete the program successfully, most have their conviction dismissed and expunged.   The Ohio legislature appears to be getting in line with this new enlightened approach too since the House just passed a bill increasing penalties for those profiting from human trafficking, while also increasing help for the victims.  A fund has been established from money seized from convicted drug trafficking offenders to help pay for services for the victims.

I had the opportunity to attend CATCH court recently to see firsthand how it works.  It meets every Thursday from 1:30-3:30 at 375 North High Street, courtroom 12C, and is open to the public (all women- men need advance approval to attend).  All of the women in the CATCH program the day I was there shared their stories with everyone in the courtroom. Some had positive accomplishments to report; one woman talked about making contact with estranged family members and her attempts at reconciliation with them (her mother and son were there in court for the first time that day).  Another woman talked about how she was finally on the verge of obtaining her GED.  Others shared personal insights they had gained about their life choices and their struggle to heal from their painful pasts.  Sometimes Judge Herbert asked a question or made a comment; always each woman’s summary of her progress included how many days she had been clean.  This was followed by a rousing round of applause from everyone in the courtroom.  I was struck by the willingness of these women to be so transparent about themselves and their lives in a public forum.  I could sense real love and support coming from the women for each other and the compassion of this judge, who remembered each woman’s name and story, was heartwarming.  At some point in the proceedings the bailiff began to bring in a few prisoners in shackles.  A newly arrested woman was given the opportunity to consider participating in CATCH and to hear directly from the other women in the program about it.  She was willing to give it a try and was returned to jail to complete the process.  Another woman, who had completed six months in the program, had recently been re-arrested after returning to the streets.  Judge Herbert remembered her and told her how sorry he was that she had relapsed. He told her how much potential he saw in her and how afraid he was for her chances of survival on the streets. As if to emphasize his point, he told her about a recent murder of a young woman who had gotten into a car with a man and was later found dead.  It was a chilling account but his concern for the prisoner felt genuine.  The other women chimed in offering encouragement, but also confronting her directly, as only they could, about her denial and her self-pity.

This program has been paying off in more ways than one.  Besides being cost effective, Herbert believes its real value is in saving lost souls.  He says, “Right now we know that 60% who have entered our program are continuing in their recovery.  People say, compare that to the success rate you had before.  That’s pretty difficult, but probably there was little to no success rate- only a death rate, how long are they going to live.”

I was told that it is not uncommon for women to turn down a time-served sentence in favor of Judge Herbert’s 2-year program of recovery.  I can see why given the success stories I heard.  As Judge Herbert once said in an interview, “We want women in our program to know they are important and special.”  He certainly conveyed that to the women he interacted with in court the day I was there.  One woman in the program expressed it this way, “CATCH court is like my own personal church every week.  It uplifts me.  It makes me feel like I’m not alone.  Just having a judge proud of me…I can’t say enough good things about the CATCH court program.”  Having observed it first hand, neither can I.

For more information about programs that support and work with the CATCH program go to:

 http://www.domaconnection.org/

www.amethyst-inc.org/