Police sexual misconduct is a systemic problem, and the dangers arise every time police are dispatched: traffic stops, domestic abuse calls, minor offenses, drug arrests, police interactions with teenagers, investigations into sex trafficking. Rather than being part of the solution, America’s police forces—riddled with corruption, brutality, sexual misconduct and drug abuse—have increasingly become part of the problem. In a number of cases, victims of sex trafficking report that police are among those “buying” young girls and women for sex. While the problem of cops engaged in sex trafficking is part of the American police state’s seedy underbelly that doesn’t get addressed enough, equally alarming is the number of cops who commit sex crimes against those they encounter as part of their job duties, a largely underreported number given the “blue wall of silence” that shields police misconduct. As constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead makes clear in this week's podcast, young girls are particularly vulnerable to these predators in blue. When you add sex crimes against grown women into the mix, the picture becomes even more sordid.
