A civil case is a lawsuit brought by the victim and/or the family to seek monetary compensation from those who could have, but failed to prevent the crime from happening.  For example, if a child is assaulted by a teacher at school and the school failed to do a background check on the teacher, the school could be held responsible for the abuse by the teacher.  If a child is hurt by another student at school or daycare due to improper supervision of the children, the school or daycare could be held responsible.

Schools and daycares have a responsibility to keep the children in their care safe.  If the school, daycare or organization acts carelessly, whether it’s through the ways described above, or failure to have appropriate training or policies and procedures, the school, daycare or organization could be held accountable.

A civil case can lead to monetary compensation for the survivor to cover things like medical treatment, counseling, future care needs, and pain and suffering.  “Pain and suffering” means the impact the assault has had on the child’s or family’s life physically, emotionally, and psychologically.  In addition to immediate impacts of abuse, effects of the trauma can last long into the child’s future as well.  Compensation for pain and suffering can account for things like panic attacks, nightmares, depression, or other effects to the victim.

Sometimes, childhood sexual abuse can continue to severely impact the victim into adulthood and affect the adult’s ability to earn a living.  If this is the case, the victim can seek monetary compensation for future loss of earning capacity or lost wages for not being able to work.  Sometimes, in addition to monetary compensation, a civil lawsuit can help make things safer in the future.  As part of a settlement, a school or daycare can agree to re-train its staff or revise policies and procedures to prevent what happened to your child from happening to anyone else.

Ultimately, each case is different depending on the specific facts of what happened.  If you have questions about your legal rights and options, you should contact a lawyer as soon as possible.  There are time limits, called the Statute of Limitations, that govern how long you have to file a lawsuit and can vary depending on where the incident occurred and the specific facts of the case.  If you don’t file the case by the Statute of Limitations, you could possibly lose the rights to any case you may have.

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Human trafficking involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain labor or commercial sex acts. Traffickers might use violence, manipulation, or false promises of well-paying jobs or romantic relationships to lure victims into trafficking situations.  The traffickers keep the victim from leaving by violence, threats of violence, psychological manipulation, withholding the victim’s identification or passport, drugs, alcohol, or other ways.

Even though the crime of human trafficking may seem like the traffickers are the ones to blame, hotels also hold some responsibility when it turns a blind eye and profits financially from the crime.  The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act[1] allows for civil lawsuits against anyone who “knew or should have known” that sex trafficking occurred and financially benefitted.  This means that hotels and other companies that allow human trafficking to take place on its premises can be held accountable.

These are some of the red flags that human trafficking is happening in a hotel:

• Rooms are paid for in cash sometimes for weeks at a time
• ID is not presented or checked when booking the room
• Many men are coming in and out of the hotel room, oftentimes without luggage
• Requests for excessive change of sheets and/or towels
• Large boxes of condoms or lubricant in the room during cleaning
• Refusing to allow the room to be cleaned for a significant period of time

Although it may be difficult to show that the hotel and its staff had “actual knowledge” of human trafficking, when multiple red flags are present, and the hotel ignores them, it makes a stronger case to meet the “should have known” standard under the law.  Liability against the hotel is based upon constructive knowledge and the more evidence there is and fact specific examples, the better the chances are of holding the hotel responsible in a civil lawsuit.

To understand the extent of the problem, in the last five years, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, there have been 35-40 major human trafficking cases.  Most of these cases have been in Bensalem due to the high volume of hotels and close proximity to major roadways.  In 2013, the Network of Victim Assistance of Bucks County (NOVA) established The Bucks Coalition Against Trafficking (BCAT), whose mission is to end human trafficking and provide education to Bucks County hotel workers on recognizing the signs of human trafficking.  Despite offering to provide education to local hotels, none of the 17 hotels accepted the training that had been offered.

More education would allow hotel workers to better recognize the signs of human trafficking and empower them to speak up and put a stop to it.  Ending human trafficking would be the best outcome, but in order to get there, we need education and accountability for those who allow it to happen.

[1] 18 U.S.C. § 1595(a)

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Disclosing sexual abuse and assault is difficult.  There are many reasons why someone would not tell anyone for years after an assault has happened.  When the perpetrator is a stranger, the victim will usually tell soon after.  However, when the perpetrator is someone the victim knows, maybe a family member, someone they trusted, someone who’s well liked in their circle or community, telling someone else becomes a lot more complicated.  To give you an idea of the breakdown of perpetrators who are known to the victim versus being assaulted by a stranger, the statistics are that 93% of juvenile victims know their abuser: 59% are acquaintances, 34% are family members, and 7% are strangers to the victim.[1]

I wanted to answer a couple common questions that are asked when someone discloses that they have been abused.  It’s important to educate so people understand why telling someone may not be so simple.

Why Don’t Victims Tell?

Children typically do not disclose sexual abuse during or immediately after the time they are abused.[2]  In one study, 75 percent of children did not disclose within the first year of the abuse and 18 percent had not disclosed after five years.[3]  In another study, 58 percent of child sexual abuse victims did not disclose until adulthood.  The pressures to remain silent are wide-ranging and often overwhelming, including pressure or threats from the perpetrator, a relationship with the perpetrator, fear of the anticipated consequences of telling, fear of negative reactions from parents or family, fear of not being believed, feelings of embarrassment, shame and self-blame. [4]

If you look at the reaction from many people, whether it’s politicians, media, celebrities or your own social media feed, you can see the negative reaction to victims who come forward years later.  The response is oftentimes mean, accusatory, and the opposite of supportive.  It’s not a surprise why victims are afraid to come forward and tell the truth about what happened to them.  Granted, there is a movement of people, who do support survivors and have begun using the hashtag #believesurvivors, but the personal attacks on the victims, which sometimes go as far as death threats, definitely encourage a survivor to stay silent.

Why Did the Victim’s Story Change?

Others may ask, why did the victim’s story change?  Perhaps at one point, the survivor may only reveal a little bit about what happened and then later, reveal more details that are oftentimes more serious.

It’s important to understand that disclosure is a process, not a single event.[5]  The disclosure process may involve the victim revealing bits of information, not always in chronological order, and not always to the same individual.  The child may test adult responses by seeking support for something they perceive as less risky or vulnerable or may disclose only a part of their victimization to determine if the listener may be trusted to handle disclosures that are more serious.  Attempts to disclose are often made in behavioral or indirect verbal ways.[6]  It can be through writing songs or poetry, drawing, hypothetical stories, acting out scenarios with dolls or other indirect ways.  There’s no one way or right way to disclose.  It can come in all forms and at different times.  This isn’t a reason to not believe the survivor, as this type of disclosure is common.

It happened so long ago, shouldn’t he or she be over it by now?

Definitely not true.  Childhood sexual assaults continue to impact children long into adulthood both psychologically, physically and functionally.[7]  Studies have shown that childhood abuse, including childhood sexual abuse, has been causally linked to depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, chronic pain syndromes, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and irritable bowel.

Also, compared to adults who have not suffered childhood abuse, those who have suffered childhood abuse are more likely to engage in high-risk health behaviors including smoking, alcohol and drug use and unsafe sex practices.  The combination of these factors leads to increased health issues and decreased life expectancy.

Childhood sexual abuse has a profound impact medically (physically and psychologically), but also interpersonally.[8]  Childhood sexual abuse represents a risk factor for a range of interpersonal dysfunction among female survivors, including problems with intimate partner relations, disturbed sexual functioning, and difficulties in the parental role.  Understandably, child sexual abuse victims have difficulty trusting others.  Childhood sexual abuse also impacts self-esteem, which then negatively impacts future job prospects and success in the workplace.

On the surface, a survivor can sometimes appear happy and be a functioning, productive member of society.  There are some that have difficulty holding it together.  Not all victims look the same.  Some victims have good days when other days are a struggle.  There can be things that come up during a day that can cause the survivor to have a flash back or a difficult time not thinking about the assault.  There can be times where he or she feels strong, and then other days where it’s just too much to handle.

I’ve seen comments and internet memes of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony at the recent Senate hearing that echo the sentiment that “she doesn’t look like a victim because she’s smiling.”  Strength from a survivor can look like many different things.  If you think back to the “army of survivors” who spoke at Olympic gymnastics coach and serial child abuser Larry Nassar’s sentencing, some were powerful and strong; others wept as they recounted what the assaults had done to their lives.  Please keep in mind, there is no “one size fits all” for survivors.

In the weeks and months to come, I anticipate more people will gather the strength to come forward and tell their truth.  When they do, I hope you have a better understanding of what’s going on inside the brave man or woman who has chosen to finally speak up.

References

[1] Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement (2000).

[2] J.E.B. Meyers, 1 Evidence in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases §1.27

[3] Elliot & Briere, Forensic Sexual Abuse Evaluations of Older Children: Disclosures and Symptomology, Behavioral Sciences and the Law (1994).

[4] R. Alaggia, Many Ways of Telling: Expanding Conceptualizations of Child Sexual Abuse Disclosure, 28 Child Abuse & Neglect 1213 (2004).

[5] Mitru Ciarlante, Disclosing Sexual Victimization, The Prevention Researcher (2007)

[6] Townsend, Child Sexual Abuse Disclosure: What Practitioners Need to Know, Darkness to Light (2016).

[7] Springer, et al., The Long-term Health Outcomes of Childhood Abuse, J. Gen. Intern. Med. (2003).

[8] Mullen, et al., The Effect of Child Sexual Abuse on Social, Interpersonal and Sexual Function in Adult Life, British Journal of Psychiatry (1994).

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However, there’s a host of other apps that kids having been using to hide what they’re doing from their parents.  In this blog I want to focus on one specifically, but here are two articles that talk about some other apps that kids are using that parents should be aware of.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-12-apps-that-every-parent-of-a-teen-should-know-about_us_56c34e49e4b0c3c55052a6ba 

https://www.learningliftoff.com/10-apps-kids-use-that-parents-should-know-about/

What’s the app?

The app is called “Calculator%” and is free on the Apple app store.  If you go to the app store, it’s listed under “Private Photos (Calculator%)”, but when downloaded, shows up on the phone

icons as a calculator and mentions nothing about private photos.  The app is used by kids to take, store, or send photos and videos that they don’t want their parents or others to see.  There are several other “calculator” apps that hide photos that are free on the app store as well.

How does the app work?

The app looks like a calculator so parents or adults don’t suspect anything if they look at their child’s phone.  Once the app is opened, it looks like a calculator, too.  When the app is first downloaded, a 4-digit numerical password is chosen by the user and that is the way the app is accessed from that point forward.  Putting in the passcode isn’t enough to access the app.  You must also type in a period before and after the code.  So if my code is 1234, you open the app, type in .1234. and the calculator will open up the real app, which is albums of photos and videos that have been taken, sent or received.

The app is free, but for $1.99 the app can be upgraded to do more, including monitor for an “intruder” or someone that tries to access the app without their knowledge.

What’s the harm in having an app like that?

I can’t say that every child that has this app is up to no good.  Yet, it has been used by kids to store, take, send and receive nude photographs.  This can and does lead to cyberbullying, sexting, and kids committing suicide.  Also, if someone is receiving or sending nude or inappropriate photos of kids under the age of 18, there is the potential for them to be charged with child pornography.

As a parent, it’s important to keep an eye on what your kids are doing.  Educate yourself on what kids are using to communicate and talk to your kids about it.

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When sexual assault is placed into public view, it encourages others to come forward and tell someone about what has happened to them.  We’ve seen this in recent months with the #MeToo campaign, which encourages people to show support for and encourage other survivors by letting them know they’re not alone.

When someone discloses to you, the way you react can have a big impact on the survivor.  For purposes of this article, I will refer to the survivor as a “her”, but understand that sexual assault can happen to anyone.  If someone discloses to you, here are the four things you should do:

1. Listen

For a survivor, disclosing she was abused can be scary.  Since abuse oftentimes happens behind closed doors, it’s easy for it to be kept there.  However, for a lot of people to begin to heal, that tightly locked door needs to be opened and the secret let out.

If you’re the person someone feels safe enough to disclose to, the first thing you should do is listen.  Don’t batter her with questions, don’t judge her, don’t cut her off…just listen.  Let her say what she has likely been wanting to say for a while.  Whether it’s been a day, a month or years since the abuse, it takes a lot of courage to tell someone so the best you can do is just hear her out.  If you cut her off, it can have a detrimental effect and potentially cause her to close off and not share anything more.  It was scary enough deciding to tell someone so please just let her talk.

2. Believe Them

One of the primary reasons people don’t disclose is the fear of what someone will think.  Will I be believed?  Will I be judged?  Will knowing what happened to me cause you to look at me differently?  All of these things run through a survivor’s mind prior to and during the disclosure.

After listening to her, you should believe her.  Inevitably, there are always people who want to play devil’s advocate and say that some people make false allegations.  However, the number of people who make false allegations is actually very small.  Even though research varies slightly, the studies have ranged from concluding that between 2 to 10 percent of sexual assault allegations are false,which leaves the other 90-98% of accusers telling the truth.  These numbers also need to be considered with the fact that the majority of sexual assaults go unreported.  Specifically, the National Institute of Justice has found that only 36% of rapes, 34% of attempted rapes and 26% of sexual assaults were reported to authorities. This same study found that one-third of the women included in the study have not disclosed their abuse to anyone.

The large majority of people who disclose are telling the truth.  Having someone doubt, question, or judge her will only cause her to shut down.  When she makes the decision to tell you, the most supportive thing you can do is to believe her.

3. Support Them

Survivors may want different things when disclosing.  They may want counseling.  They may want to report it to the police and try to prosecute the assailant.  They may just want to tell someone to have that weight lifted off their chest.  Whatever her reason is for telling you, make sure you support her.

While I’d encourage survivors to tell the police, I can also understand why doing so can be intimidating.  Be there for her to offer support in whatever way she needs it.  Whether it’s just to let her cry it out, help search for a therapist or support group, or something as small as just giving her a hug.  To a survivor, letting her know you love her and that despite knowing what happened, it doesn’t change your view of her, it can really make a huge difference.

4. Be the Change

When I was at the National Center for Victims of Crime conference last year (a nationwide conference for professionals who work with victims and survivors of crime), a rape survivor spoke at one of the sessions.  She travels around the country to colleges to speak out about campus rape and against schools who sweep sexual assault allegations under the rug.  She said in her experience, people, mostly men, will say, “I don’t rape/sexually assault/harass women, so I’m not part of the problem.”  Her response was, “I know, you’re the solution.”  That statement was so powerful.

Here’s what it means.  We know that there are a lot of people out there who aren’t the predators.  These people can scroll past an article or change the channel on a news story thinking, not me, I respect women, I would never sexually assault someone.  However, everyone has an obligation to take part in the conversation and be part of the solution.  As former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign has said, “It’s On Us.”

Men-  if you’re out with your guy friends and one of your friends smacks someone on the butt, call your friend out and tell him that’s unacceptable.  If someone else is bragging about having sex with a girl when she was drunk, let him know that’s not ok.

Women-  this goes for you too.  If you’re listening to gossip about a girl who claimed to be assaulted and someone says, “yea, but did you see what she was wearing?”  Put your friend in check.  Tell them that way of thinking is not ok and it doesn’t matter what someone is wearing, she still doesn’t deserve to be assaulted.

Here’s the bottom line:  People disclose at different times and some people aren’t ready to try to come to terms with what happened until many years later.  This doesn’t mean that it did not happen or had any less physical or psychological impact on the survivor.  The way people view sexual assault needs to change and rape culture needs to end.  The only way things will change is if we police each other.  If you aren’t the problem, you’re part of the solution…so be the solution.

The post Four Things Sexual Assault Survivors Want You To Know appeared first on Freiwald Law.

Dr. Mellissa Withers explained in anticipation of last year’s Super Bowl in Houston, Texas: “The underground nature of trafficking means that much of the activity goes undocumented but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. This serious societal problem is too important to refute or ignore because of stubborn denials or a lack of data.”   To read the full article by Dr. Withers, you can find it here.

To understand the magnitude of human trafficking, let me start out by giving you some statistics:

• Since 2007, the National Human Trafficking Hotline, operated by Polaris, has received reports of 22,191 sex trafficking cases inside the United States.
• This hotline receives an average of 100 calls each day.
• In 2016, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children estimated that 1 in 6 endangered runaways reported to them were likely sex trafficking victims.
• Globally, the International Labor Organization estimates that there are 4.5 million people trapped in forced sexual exploitation globally.
• In a 2014 report, the Urban Institute estimated that the underground sex economy ranged from $39.9 million in Denver, Colorado, to $290 million in Atlanta, Georgia.

How are people trafficked?

Here’s a typical scenario: a young girl leaves home with her internet “boyfriend” after a fight with her parents.  She is then trafficked into sex slavery and is repeatedly molested and raped numerous times each day for months, maybe even years.  She is forced to take photos wearing practically nothing in seductive poses.  Then, the photos are put on the internet with language to entice male adults to click on the ad and inquire.

This is a common story behind the advertisements on Backpage.com.  If you’re unfamiliar with Backpage, it is a forum similar to Craiglist, but also includes listings for prostitution.  With the click of a mouse, you can purchase sex and have a girl delivered to your door.  While some may not see an issue with this lifestyle, there is a major issue with some of the postings on Backpage.  Some of the ads do not feature women over the age of 18.  Instead, they feature and sell children.  Backpage.com is notorious for posting ads of young trafficking victims.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says classifieds website Backpage.com is involved in nearly three-quarters of all reports of online child sex trafficking that it receives from the general public.  A Senate investigation showed adult ads proved to be big business for Backpage, generating more than 90 percent of its ad revenue in 2011.

Once someone is trafficked, it is extremely difficult to break them away from being trafficked.  The pimp manipulates and brainwashes the victim to create a bond that is not always easy to break.  Initially, when victims are sometimes rescued, they may be hostile to the police or people trying to help, but through therapy, the brainwashing can be undone.

The Backpage Litigation

Parents of the surviving trafficking victims, as well as the victims themselves, have tried to file lawsuits against Backpage.com for allowing underage girls to be sold for sex and trafficked through their website.  The documentary “I am Jane Doe” on Netflix describes the legal battle victims and their families have been facing for several years.  Since selling children for sex is illegal, it would seem that the websites that allow this to happen should be held accountable.  However, as the documentary shows, it’s not exactly easy to do so.

Websites like Backpage have found a legal loophole in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.  This federal law was enacted in 1996 and grants internet service providers immunity from responsibility for third-party content on their websites.  Initially, this law was passed when the internet was rapidly expanding and the law wanted to protect websites, which were providing a forum to post online content, from liability for the content that was posted.  As we all know, the internet has continued to expand since that time and the lawmakers never really anticipated the things the internet could be used for today.

Over and over again, the lawsuits brought against Backpage were dismissed based on the immunity under the Communications Decency Act.  One case has been successful thus far by crafting an argument to close the loophole.  In order to qualify for the immunity, you cannot be actively editing content in the post; you must only provide the forum to do so.  The successful argument was that Backpage was not passive in allowing posts of underage girls for prostitution, but instead, it participated in the content that was posted by making edits that would allow the posts involving children to go undetected by law enforcement.

A Senate report alleges Backpage “knowingly concealed evidence” of child sex trafficking through its editing “by deleting words, phrases, and images indicative of criminality.” Senate investigators said words like “young,” “little girl” and “innocent” were removed while “the remainder of the ad would be published.”

The owners of Backpage.com were required to testify before a congressional hearing on this issue in a push to close the loophole for immunity.  At the hearing, each of the executives decided to plead the 5^th and not offer any testimony.  While the law has not yet been changed to close the loophole, I’m hopeful that it will be.

Trafficking isn’t always something that is on our minds daily, but it is happening around us every single day.  Keep your eyes open for signs of trafficking, which can be found here.  If you have Netflix, watch “I am Jane Doe” to educate yourself.  When you see something, tell someone.  You just may be the key to a girl getting saved from being trafficked.

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Trump’s announcement may not be the “head on” approach we were promised. The President’s decision to affirm opioid dependency and abuse as a “national public health emergency” was a decision that in will provide less money to the reform effort.

Federal agencies can direct grant money to combat the epidemic. If Trump had used the Stafford Act to declare the emergency, however, the government would have been able to use more substantial funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund.

In his wide-ranging speech, seemingly more focused on fanfare than commitment to ending a devastating epidemic, the President emphasized law enforcement and education as the administration’s main focuses on combating opioid addiction and overdoses.

The press conference offered little detail as to how funds will be allocated or even ideas about what the money will do. In his speech, Trump mentioned “cracking down” on those who are buying illegal drugs, as well as focusing efforts to stop the flow of traffic into the U.S.

What would happen though, if the administration treated addicts as medical patients and not criminals? If the preventative strategies were seen as methods of treatment and not punishment?

A preventive measure, referred to as Safe Injection Facilities (SIFs) could do just that. Similar to needle exchange programs, SIFs may actually save lives by providing addicts a safe and clean space to use. Through the SIF approach, people who are already struggling with addiction have access to the help they may need.

The Insite Safe Injection Facility

Other cities around the world have already implemented SIFs into communities. Insite, in Vancouver, Canada has been open since 2003 and is one example of how SIFs are changing thousands of lives.

In the article, “If Philly is serious about saving drug users’ lives it will open a supervised inject site,” former Insite employee, Sara Evans details her experience working for the nonprofit. “…I’ve seen the benefits firsthand,” she said of her experience, “At Insite, we tried to meet people wherever they were in the cycle of addiction and recovery and give them the options to make choices.”

In 2006, the British Medical Journal published a “before and after” study on the impact of medically supervised SIFs on the community and its drugs use patterns. This study measured the rates of relapse among former drug users and of the rates of current drug users who stopped using drugs.

The study found that “the reported benefits of supervised injecting facilities on drug users’ high risk behaviors and on public order do not seem to have been offset by negative community impacts.” Referencing Vancouver’s Insite, the study further discussed its findings, “Our study indicates that the opening of North America’s first supervised injection facility was not associated with measurable negative changes… indeed, we found a substantial reduction in the starting of binge drug use after the opening of the facility.”

The study went on to say that the “evaluation of the Vancouver facility Insite has shown that its opening has been associated with reductions in public drug uses and publicly discarded syringes… [as well as] reductions in syringe sharing among local injecting drug users.”

The study ultimately concludes by reiterating that the data suggests that positive benefits were not offset by any negative changes in community drug use. Safe Injection Facilities evolved from the idea of needle sharing and offering limited medical guidance to the idea of people who are struggling being given direct access to a wider array of opportunities

“If they [addicts] wanted detox, they could go right upstairs,” says Ms. Evans, “If they wanted treatment, we could keep them safe and help them find it. And if they relapsed along the way, they knew that they could come back to us and we’d be there to support them.”

Some might worry that safe sites add to using or increased drug use. But Evans says these concerns “ are unfounded.”

Reminiscent of Nancy Reagan’s, “Just Say No” campaign, is the idea that we aren’t talking about SIFs because there seems to be something scandalous about them when they could be (and are in some cases) a viable harm reduction perspective.

In our Good Law | Bad Law podcast, Number 46, we discuss this idea with Scott Burris, a Temple University law professor and a leading expert on public health law. “Values are really important,” Burris said, “[but] it’s a fantasy to think just affirming those values, you prevent people from doing those things. Let alone, help them once they’ve started to hurt themselves.”

Professor Burris insists that once we understand this notion, we can understand the morality of SIFs. “So you have to say, we have other values… you know, we love our family members, and if they stumble we want to catch them, we want to bring them back.”

“As soon as you get into that realm of values, the proclamation here is very easy to make,” Burris said, “We know for a fact, from evidence, that offering needle exchange in a community doesn’t increase the uptake of drug use by kids. We know for a fact that if you have a safe injection facility in a community, more people don’t start using drugs…we know for a fact those interventions actually save lives.”

Despite this and the success of sites like Insite in Canada and others around the world, there are still no SIFs in the U.S. Unofficially, some are trying to help as best they can.

A recent CNN article, “Opioid addiction and the most controversial bathroom in New York,” explores the benefits of safe spaces for IV addicts.

The Corner Project In New York City

The Corner Project in New York, New York, began as a needle sharing initiative to battle the spread of communicable diseases, such as HIV. (Note: experts believe we have yet to reach the peak of opioid addiction and the death toll has already surpassed that of the peak HIV outbreak in the 90s.) Beginning as a community outreach program in 2005, the Corner Project established roots in an actual building in 2009. It was a move to stabilize the program and with it came windows, a door, and a bathroom.

Corner Project workers quickly found that clients would come for a clean needle and then promptly use the bathroom to shoot up, soon, there was an overdose, and then there was another, and so on and so on, until Corner Project employees saw an opportunity to help as a “moral obligation.”

At first blush, this bathroom is just a bathroom, but to Director Evans, it is much, much more. “People are dying in those bathrooms,” Evans said, “…and so there’s an acknowledgment that as a syringe exchange provider, we have a moral obligation to make sure that people don’t die in our building.”

Bathrooms are often a spot where people who are struggling with addiction use and administer drugs. We know this and this then becomes a safety concern for addicts and for other people using the bathrooms and public areas. Some argue that SIFs will solve both of these dilemmas.

At Corner Project, there is someone who will check in on a user via intercom every three minutes to make sure the user is still conscious. If someone doesn’t respond to a check-in, someone medically trained, will unlock the door and rush in ready with a syringe of naloxone. One worker, Hector Mata, has been with the program for more than seven years and has personally seen at least 25 overdoses, but zero deaths. He says he has never failed.

To the argument that these facilities are merely “consumption sites,” Corner Project and the liked-minded argue that if addicts don’t have access to SIFs, they will find other places to shoot up, just as they have done before, far away from people who might be able to help in the event of an overdose.

SIFs and Hesitation

Not everyone is as confident about Safe Injection Facilities. In an article published in, The Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice, Garth Davies, a Canadian academic, scrutinizes the methodology of studies on SIFs, predominantly those overwhelmingly suggesting the success of such sites.

“Previous studies are comprised by an array of deficiencies, including a lack of baseline data, insufficient conceptual and operational clarity, inadequate evaluation criteria, absent statistical controls, dearth of longitudinal designs, and inattention to intrusive variation,” writes Davies. He purports that these studies are misguided and that they insufficiently disentangled “complicated causal mechanisms,” assuming then that these studies misidentified their shortcomings.

Davies concedes that “SIFs are but one part of a much larger systematic response to the problem of substance abuse and intravenous drug use,” but cautions that “they are too often credited with generating positive effects that are no borne out by solid empirical evidence.

 It’s Time to Start Doing

No matter one’s stance on SIFs, it is important to consider all solutions. What is crucial however, is that we begin to implement these proposed strategies. “Ending the epidemic will require mobilization of government, local communities, and private organizations.  Trump said last Thursday, “It will require the resolve of our entire country.”

Trump promises that approvals on his panel’s recommendations will come “very, very fast.” But what if the recommendations laid out by the commission omit critical ideas that are saving lives? How fast is “very, very fast”? We must keep asking questions and keep the discussion moving forward in order to help those struggling now, but also to help everyone in the future.

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Jennifer was 33 years old when she died from breast cancer. She was 28 when she went to her OB/GYN after discovering a tiny pea-sized lump in her breast and was denied treatment because she was “too young for a mammogram.” She died just before her 34^th birthday from an aggressive form of cancer that developed after she was told, “it’s probably nothing” and not to worry.

Two years ago, we published a post about Jennifer’s story in the hopes that things would be different. We wanted to initiate a conversation for change in light of the American Cancer Society coming out with new guidelines for mammogram screenings.

In 2015, the recommended age for getting an annual mammogram increased from 40 to 45 for the general population of people who are considered “of average risk for breast cancer.” The ACS’s website states that “women should have the choice to start screening with yearly mammograms as early as age 40 if they want to.” But what does that mean? Does it mean that women who are under the age of 40 are too young for a mammogram and shouldn’t have the choice to get one? Jennifer* didn’t even make it to her 34th birthday.

Almost two decades later, things remain the same. Last week, another young woman, Kayla Redig, posted an article detailing her own experience with the medical community dismissing her concerns and denying her pleas to be seen.

Kayla is 24 years old and she has breast cancer. As happened in Jennifer’s case, after discovering a lump on her own, Kayla went to her doctor, only to be told that she was too young to need a mammogram because she was “too young to have cancer.”

Unfortunately, cancer doesn’t discriminate based on age, even if some medical professionals do.

Only after demanding to be seen and after several arguments with her doctors, nurses, and ultrasound technicians, Kayla received a mammogram. She describes her diagnosis as “vindication” that she was right to stand up for herself and wasn’t overreacting at all.

Kayla’s story might end differently than Jennifer’s, but it begins the same, with dismissal and disbelief.

Kayla has now become an advocate for people who find themselves in the same position she did; “I learned that cancer didn’t look like me, because the young adult cancer population didn’t have a face. So, I decided to become it.” She has recently created a film detailing her experience and offers guidance to people who are also dealing with the same thing. The documentary is called, “Vincible.”

Things haven’t changed yet but maybe they will if we keep asking the questions, just like Kayla did. If we can keep the conversation going and keep it growing, maybe it won’t take another 20 years until we see the medical community take women like Kayla and Jennifer much more seriously.

*Jennifer’s name has been changed in this story

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Repeatedly in criminal cases, family court cases, personal injury cases and pretty much any other type of case, social media is being used as a tool to help prove or, in some cases, disprove claims.  In my practice, what a person has posted on social media will come up in almost every case.  Not only will the content of the posts be brought to light, but oftentimes, the opposing side will ask for the social media logins and passwords as well.

Ultimately, the Court may decide whether or not your login and password will have to be turned over, but before it even gets to this point, you want to make sure you’re being responsible on social media.

What Can You Do to Protect Yourself?

1. Make Your Profile Private

It’s important to make your social media profiles private.  Even if you don’t have a pending case, making social media public allows anyone and everyone to have access to what you’re posting.  This can come back to bite you not only in the context of a case, but at your job, volunteer positions or other areas of your life.  That’s why it’s smart to err on the side of having your social media accounts like Facebook and Instagram private.  Depending on how you set up the privacy settings, it may not hide every photo or post from the public, but the more you can keep private instead of public, the better.

2. Be Smart About Posting

As they say in the law when an accused is read their Miranda warnings, “anything you say can and will be used against you,” this rings true in the area of posts on social media as well.  The way posted photos are typically used is when an injured person says “I can’t go skiing due to my knee injury,” then there’s a photo from Aspen, Colorado going up the ski lift; or “The scar on my stomach makes me embarrassed to wear a bathing suit during summer,” yet there’s a photo from a recent beach trip with the scar fully visible, with a big smile on the person’s face; or “I’m just so upset all the time, I barely can go outside and enjoy myself,” but there’s a post about how wonderful it is to be outside and how much they’re loving life.  These contradictions can tremendously hurt a person’s case.

In the context of a criminal case, if you have charges filed against you for terroristic threats and you post that “someone is going to get what’s coming to them,” this can be used against you at a later time.  The above are just a few examples, but they give you an idea of how your posts can get you in trouble.

If you don’t have a pending case, you may think, what’s the big deal?  It’s my page and I can post what I want and it’s my outlet to vent when I need to.  That’s understandable, but know that if there’s a time where someone wants to use something against you…if you’re ever a witness in a case, criminal charges are brought against you, you get sued for some reason, or are involved in a custody dispute…you can bet that the opposing side will be scouring your social media pages to find whatever they can to use in the case.

Putting things in writing, even if it’s later deleted, can always come back to bite you.  Use caution and think before posting, “is this something I’d want my boss, my mom or a jury that’s deciding my fate to see?”  If not, then find another way to vent and don’t make that post or publish that picture.

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Just as predictably, all of these efforts turn out to be window-dressing.

A student died at LSU following a night of hazing-related excessive drinking.  A football player at Billy Graham’s alma mater, Wheaton College, was horribly abused from hazing, leading to the arrest of five of his teammates.  It goes on and on.

Just in the last few days:

• Southern Methodist University suspended its Kappa Alpha chapter for hazing that included paddling and forcing recruits to wear clothes covered in vomit
• Ole Miss announced that four Greek organizations are under investigation for hazing
• A former OklahomaU student filed suit alleging serious bodily injuries from fraternity hazing that he endured.

Even Penn State, which has been the subject of a number of high-profile hazing cases, such as the Tim Piazza death case, announced it was suspending yet another fraternity, Delta Tau Delta, after an 18-year old pledge was found on the street, unconscious from excessive drinking.

The news coverage, now this week including major articles in national publications such as Vanity Fair and The Atlantic, reveal more and more gruesome details about the Piazza case and the extent of Penn State’s knowledge and complicity in fraternity hazing.

In a recent episode of “Case In Point”, a feature of our podcast “Good Law | Bad Law” (found below) I talk about the need for real leadership at the highest levels of our colleges and universities as the key to any real change.

What else do we need to know about hazing?  How many more of our children are going to get hurt?  Are fraternities going to have to be banned altogether before meaningful change can take place?  How is this OK?

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