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“This vacillation between assertion and denial in discussions about organised abuse can be understood as functional, in that it serves to contain the traumatic kernel at the heart of allegations of organised abuse. In his influential ‘just world�� theory, Lerner (1980) argued that emotional wellbeing is predicated on the assumption that the world is an orderly, predictable and just place in which people get what they deserve. Whilst such assumptions are objectively false, Lerner argued that individuals have considerable investment in maintaining them since they are conducive to feelings of self—efficacy and trust in others. When they encounter evidence contradicting the view that the world is just, individuals are motivated to defend this belief either by helping the victim (and thus restoring a sense of justice) or by persuading themselves that no injustice has occurred. Lerner (1980) focused on the ways in which the ‘just world�� fallacy motivates victim-blaming, but there are other defences available to bystanders who seek to dispel troubling knowledge. Organised abuse highlights the severity of sexual violence in the lives of some children and the desire of some adults to inflict considerable, and sometimes irreversible, harm upon the powerless. Such knowledge is so toxic to common presumptions about the orderly nature of society, and the generally benevolent motivations of others, that it seems as though a defensive scaffold of disbelief, minimisation and scorn has been erected to inhibit a full understanding of organised abuse.
Despite these efforts, there has been a recent resurgence of interest in organised abuse and particularly ritualistic abuse (eg Sachs and Galton 2008, Epstein et al. 2011, Miller 2012).”
― Michael Salter, Organised Sexual Abuse

“You know... confessing to avoid prosecution is a time-honored strategy.

I don't want to be honored with time. Honor me with "slap-on-the-wrist," or maybe even "scot free.”
― Howard Tayler, Emperor Pius Dei

“Some readers may find it a curious or even unscientific endeavour to craft a criminological model of organised abuse based on the testimony of survivors. One of the standard objections to qualitative research is that participants may lie or fantasise in interview, it has been suggested that adults who report severe child sexual abuse are particularly prone to such confabulation. Whilst all forms of research, whether qualitative or quantitative, may be impacted upon by memory error or false reporting. there is no evidence that qualitative research is particularly vulnerable to this, nor is there any evidence that a fantasy�� or lie—prone individual would be particularly likely to volunteer for research into child sexual abuse. Research has consistently found that child abuse histories, including severe and sadistic abuse, are accurate and can be corroborated (Ross 2009, Otnow et al. 1997, Chu et al. 1999). Survivors of child abuse may struggle with amnesia and other forms of memory disturbance but the notion that they are particularly prone to suggestion and confabulation has yet to find a scientific basis. It is interesting to note that questions about the veracity of eyewitness evidence appear to be asked far more frequently in relation to sexual abuse and rape than in relation to other crimes. The research on which this book is based has been conducted with an ethical commitment to taking the lives and voices of survivors of organised abuse seriously.”
― Michael Salter, Organised Sexual Abuse

“We must know something about malevolence, about how to recognize it, and about how not to make excuses for it. We must know that we cannot expect fair play.
That is, perhaps, most crucial of all. Those of us who practice in this field must face the implications of the fact that we are dealing with sexual abuse. Child sex offenders-people who exploit children’s bodies and betray their trust-are not going to hesitate to lie outright. This is obvious but nonetheless frequently seems to catch people by surprise.

Confessions of a Whistle-Blower: Lessons Learned Author: Anna C. Salter. Ethics & Behavior, Volume 8, Issue 2 June 1998”
― Anna Salter

“Today, acknowledgement of the prevalence and harms of child sexual abuse is counterbalanced with cautionary tales about children and women who, under pressure from social workers and therapists, produce false allegations of ‘paedophile rings��, ‘cult abuse�� and ‘ritual abuse��. Child protection investigations or legal cases involving allegations of organised child sexual abuse are regularly invoked to illustrate the dangers of ‘false memories��, ‘moral panic�� and ‘community hysteria��. These cautionary tales effectively delimit the bounds of acceptable knowledge in relation to sexual abuse. They are circulated by those who locate themselves firmly within those bounds, characterising those beyond as ideologues and conspiracy theorists.
However firmly these boundaries have been drawn, they have been persistently transgressed by substantiated disclosures of organised abuse that have led to child protection interventions and prosecutions. Throughout the 1990s, in a sustained effort to redraw these boundaries, investigations and prosecutions for organised abuse were widely labelled ‘miscarriages of justice�� and workers and therapists confronted with incidents of organised abuse were accused of fabricating or exaggerating the available evidence. These accusations have faded over time as evidence of organised abuse has accumulated, while investigatory procedures have become more standardised and less vulnerable to discrediting attacks. However, as the opening quotes to this introduction illustrate, the contemporary situation in relation to organised abuse is one of considerable ambiguity in which journalists and academics claim that organised abuse is a discredited ‘moral panic�� even as cases are being investigated and prosecuted.”
― Michael Salter, Organised Sexual Abuse

“Until 1988, one year of imprisonment had been the maximum for possession of any amount of any drug.”
― Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

“It was a good strategy but this is where I intended to turn her plans upside-down. In the courtroom there are three things for the lawyer to always consider: the knowns, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns. Whether at the prosecution or defense table, it is the lawyer’s job to master the first two and always be prepared for the third.”
― Michael Connelly, The Fifth Witness

“The weirdest thing can squirrel an investigation Never speak ill of the dead, and never, ever, claim you've got a suspect until the court case is over and he's behind bars.”
― Ridley Pearson, Killer View

“Ignorance must be prosecuted when arrested. The only way for its arrest is by information and the only way for prosecution is through reading and learning of new things.”
― Israelmore Ayivor

“Jokes and media slurs about rape and its survivors not only desensitize the issue but also have an impact on rape conviction rates!

"Widespread “myths and stereotypes�� about rape victims may give jurors “preconceived ideas�� that could affect their decisions in court. When victims were demonised in the media, you can see how juries would bring their preconceptions to bear."
-Alison Saunders, head of the Crown Prosecution Service, UK.”
― Alison Saunders head of the Crown Prosecution Service

“Countries who don’t have brave prosecutors and fearless judges will instead have plenty of thieves, many killers and even stupid dictators!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Freeman was a damn good prosecutor but in my view she didn’t play fair. A trial was supposed to be a spirited contesting of facts and evidence. Both sides with equal footing in the law and the rules of the game. But using the rules to hide or withhold facts and evidence was the routine with Freeman. She liked a tiled game. She didn’t carry the light. She didn’t even see the light.”
― Michael Connelly, The Fifth Witness

“I pretended I had urgent business at the prosecutor's table which, in one of The System's obvious tells, was always millimeters from the jury box.”
― Sergio De La Pava, A Naked Singularity

“When they say whatever you say may be used against you, they mean it!”
― Kenneth G. Eade, HOA Wire

“Over the years I have come to understand three things about the police: 1) They cover up virtually everything involving a police officer. 2) They will not enforce the laws for people that they do not like. 3) They will target people that they do not like for prosecution using various techniques that include unwarranted stops, drug testing, faked police reports, tickets, fines, blatantly mislead the judge at court, and removal of USA federal rights.”
― Steven Magee

“Police internal affairs are in the business of protecting corrupt and incompetent police officers from prosecution due to the extensive range of laws that they have blatantly broken.”
― Steven Magee

“How the jury responds to a victim is an enormous percentage of the verdict in any sex crimes trial–which is why prosecutors want Good Victims.

In New York City, Good Victims have jobs (like stockbroker or accountant) or impeccable status (like a policeman’s wife); are well educated and articulate, and are, above all, presentable to a jury; attractive–but not too attractive, demure–but not pushovers. They should be upset–but in good taste–not so upset that they become hysterical. And they must have 100 percent trust and faith in the prosecutor, so that whatever the ADA decides to do with the case is fine with them. The criteria for a Good Victim varies with locale. In the Bible Belt, for example, the profile would be a “Christian Woman.�� But the general principle remains the same.

Such attitudes are not only distasteful, they are also frightening. They say that it’s O.K. to rape some people–just not us. Old-time convicts spell justice “just us”–prosecutors aren’t supposed to. Sex-crimes prosecutors are supposed to understand that the only way to keep the wolf from our own door isn’t to throw him fresh meat but to stop him the first time he darkens anybody’s door.”
― Alice Vachss, Sex Crimes: Then and Now: My Years on the Front Lines Prosecuting Rapists and Confronting Their Collaborators

“In criminal proceedings, laymen might assume it's one person versus another, but it's not—it's the state versus the defendant. That means that you, the victim, do not have anyone on your side by default, while defendants have lawyers who are eager to tear into you from all angles. You are an asset to the state's case, not the other way around.”
― Zoe Quinn, Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate

“The Power of Awareness is working! It is proven by increased sentencing and understanding of the Sex Trafficking Problem by Judges, Prosecutors, and Jurors.”
― Heidi Chance

“Sentence every immoral thought for detention and prosecution. Immorality is a powerful gadget that brings down great monuments of success. Don’t entertain immorality.”
― Israelmore Ayivor, Shaping the dream

“The Government goes after the little guys, not their own.”
― Kenneth Eade, Terror on Wall Street, a Financial Metafiction Novel

“First, there was the Medieval Inquisition, which was largely used to prosecute the Cathars.”
― Hubert Wolf, The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio: The True Story of a Convent in Scandal

“Many Romans didn’t like the Christians. They found their reclusive behaviour offensive; their teachings foolish; their fervour irritating and their refusal to sacrifice to the emperor insulting. But for the first 250 years after the birth of Christ, the imperial policy towards them was first to ignore them and then to declare that they must not be hounded. In the encounter between the Christians and the Romans it is the former who are almost without fail remembered as the oppressed and the latter as the oppressors. Yet, apart from Nero, it was almost two and a half centuries before emperors became involved in prosecutions of Christians �� and even then, as we have seen, these prosecutions were brief. This was a grace and liberty that the Christians would decline to show to other religions when they finally gained control. A little over ten years after the newly Christian Constantine took power, it is said that laws began to be passed restricting ‘the pollutions of idolatry��. During Constantine’s own reign it seems to have been decreed that ‘no one should presume to set up cult-objects, or practise divination or other occult arts, or even to sacrifice at all��. Less than fifty years after Constantine, the death penalty was announced for any who dared to sacrifice. A little over a century later, in AD 423, the Christian government announced that any pagans who still survived were to be suppressed. Though, it added confidently �� and ominously: ‘We now believe that there are none.”
― Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World

“You did not prosecute me, you prosecuted the God in you”
― P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar