The Legal System Continues to Fail Pieper Lewis, a Survivor of Sex Trafficking
(trigger warning for trauma, violence)
lengthy, important read
The Legal System Continues to Fail Pieper Lewis, a Survivor of Sex Trafficking
4/9/2023 by Christina Carrega
The 18-year-old escaped sex trafficking; now, she faces a prison term. Her case isn’t an anomaly for Black women and girls.
A march in solidarity with Black women in Philadelphia, on Sept. 14, 2019. (Cory Clark / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
This article was originally published by Capital B News, a Black-led, nonprofit news organization reporting for Black communities across the country.
Pieper Lewis’ harrowing experiences as a sex trafficking victim and her entrance into the criminal legal system underscore the ripple effects of sexual violence on Black girls and young women.The 18-year-old is facing up to a year in jail after pleading guilty earlier this month to escaping custody. She also faces additional time in prison for violating probation. The Iowa teenager’s case received national attention last year when a *************judge ruled that she had to pay her rapist’s family $150,000 in restitution*************. But in November, less than two months into her sentence, the teen ran away from a Des Moines women’s halfway house.
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Lewis was facing life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing 37-year-old Zachary Brooks in June 2020. A year later, she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury charges for the fatal stabbing. Last September, a judge ordered her to serve five years of probation in Fresh Start Women’s Residential Facility, instead of up to 20 years in prison. He acknowledged her difficult childhood but warned her that this would be her second chance. Prior to sentencing, Lewis read a statement to the judge where she expressed her concerns about the treatment she received while in the juvenile detention center and poetically proclaimed: “My spirit has been burned, but still glows through the flames. … Hear me roar, see me glow and watch me grow. I am a survivor,” the Associated Press reported.
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Research shows that sexual violence is one of the leading factors of girls and women—especially Black girls and women—entering the criminal legal system. Incarceration statistics provided by the federal government that think tanks use for research are often outdated and don’t thoroughly break down convictions by gender, ethnicity and race to get a full picture of those who are incarcerated. Yet, Black girls represent 33.2 percent of those incarcerated, according to a collaborative report released by Georgetown University Law Center’s Center on Poverty and Inequality. The Vera Institute of Justice found that 86 percent of women in jail experienced sexual violence in their lifetime and are frequently revictimized through incarceration procedures such as supervision by male guards during showers. And of the 213 children under the age of 18 who were arrested for prostitution in 2019, 50.7 percent were Black, according to the FBI’s most recent Crime in the U.S. report.
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“I would just wonder what treatment she was receiving at the halfway house and not what they’re saying she received; what her perception of that treatment was,” Brantley said. “You know how many therapists I train who … don’t understand complex trauma?”
Generational trauma passed down from the horrors of slavery has dire consequences for some Black families, and if a health care specialist doesn’t acknowledge that before treating Black patients, they’ve already failed, Brantley said. Black girls and women who were raped by slave owners were seen as participating in “consenting prostitution,” Brantley said. The remnants of that belief, whether conscious or unconscious, persist. Trauma often goes untreated, sometimes resulting in undiagnosed mental illness, and a vicious cycle continues.
https://msmagazine.com/2023/04/09/pieper-lewis-trafficking-black-women-prison/