I agree with this. Our police forces have forgotton about prevention. The “Bobby on the beat” form of policing, where the local police knew and were known by their communities, interacted with their nighbours in normal ways and could see trouble brewing before it came to the boil, is badly needed in both rural and urban areas.

First I want to say thank goodness I watched Charlie Rose’s show featuring you, how else would I know about this fantastic site….women I’ve aged with….women I have so long admired, etc..As to the question at hand…”come on is there any doubt that these “MEN” continue to stand outside the laws pf our land!!! We look at women around the world and ask ourselves how can those patriarcahal societies continue to suppress and oppress the female spirit (in all ways possible)! Here in “The Land of the Free…how un-free and for how long will we women stand up and say “What the hell” this is not acceptible!!

I saw the numbers too, but figured they would correct when I submitted, which they did. I heard about the site tonight on Charlie Rose, I couldn’t wait to get online!

See my comment to JB … It is STOP CHILD ABUSE MONTH and this courageous young girl who called the police has not ben found. Let us pray she will be found and can testify against that so called husband and abuser. . The mothers & children have been so brain washed that this is something that may take years to undo. They need help from those who have left and turned their lives around. I pray, may you also pray for them.

LM, I see what you are saying and I agree, if a person chooses to immigrate to live in a particular country…one could assume it is because they like the kind of life that country offers. How ever it becomes a little more difficult if persons born in that country then decide that they want a different life style. Yet in a democracy we agree to live by the laws within our country and no one should be above that law. I was appalled by the Archbishop of Canterbury recent call for some Sharia law to be absorbed into British law. Sharia has nothing to do with protecting individual rights, especially for women. This polygamist group in Texas have been featured in the media even before their leader was put in jail, so the authorities have known about it. At the very least it there was suspicion that children were being abused and denied education, so why nothing was done is a mystery, abuse of children absolutely is the business of the state. It all becomes a bit murky when you consider the adult women. Are they in the group because they are brainwashed, intimidated into believing that this is the life they want or have they rationally made this choice? The adult men are in the group because they have unlimited power it seems. Recently on Oprah there were a family of one man and two wives, they appeared to be happy with their lot and they did live within a regular community. Their message was a plea for understanding, that theirs was just a different life style choice. Honestly I don’t know how I feel about that. The Texan situation is very different, these people are totally segregated from any regular society. Abuse seems to be a pattern as does the forced marriages between very young girls and old men. When most families in the ‘real world’ have to budget carefully when there is one man, one woman and a couple of children………..how does one man support 20-50 wives? something has to be not right here. It would seem that some males cannot feel good unless they have complete control of women, as this frowned upon in ‘normal’ society, they retreat into groups and pervert religion to support their needs. Yes….it is our business and as the law supports individual rights, where they are being denied, it is the business of the state. The victims of this cult should be sympathetically and given sensitive treatment…they must be very scared. They are now in the care of people that they have been taught to fear. Religious leaders should do more speaking out about those sects, cults that take religion and use it as a cloak to hide criminal activity. It is difficult but the authorities do have the obligation to protect the individual rights in law.

LM, I, too, saw a similarity between this situation and the immigration situation here in the US.

It is law-circumventing nonsense to start a tax-deductible ‘religion’ based on the brainwashing, abuse and enslavement women and children. It robs them of who they started to become and forever alters them at their core being. Yes, it is the business of the state to intervene. It is tawdry that prurient interests will exploit this for profit. It is a legitimate interest of the common good to stand against anything that dehumanizes any individual.

Lorraine Bates, you are correct. If the concept of polygamy superceded our laws because of being part of a “religious” sect, then the same concept would apply to every other lifestyle or vices people would choose. I could hang with polygamy if that is what consenting adults want and are not brainwashed into it, but they hide it behind religion because that’s the only way they can get around the laws. However when children and women are abused, that’s where the line must be drawn. This is not a religion at all, but a scam.