Jennifer Musto, an assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at Wellesley College, recently gave a talk at Chevalier’s Books in Larchmont Village on the perils and realities of sex trafficking.
Musto was doing a book signing for her new book, Control and Protect: Collaboration, Carceral Protection, and Domestic Sex Trafficking in the United States.
She said the issue is more complicated than it might seem and there are no quick or easy solutions.
One issue, she said, is that people who need help are often treated as criminals and locked up – which can cause people in need of help to avoid seeking help in the first place.
Police officers and those who run our jails are generally not well equipped to deal with social issues like these, she said. Their role is more one of control rather than protection.
Musto’s book examines how partnerships forged in the name of fighting domestic sex trafficking have blurred the boundaries between punishment and protection, victim and offender, and state and non-state authority.
Integrating policing with social service providers isn’t easy, Musto noted. These are two very different and very bureaucratic systems. It’s easy for individuals to get lost in the shuffle.
Musto got her PhD at UCLA and is married to Anthony Pacheco, a partner at Century City law firm Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Mitchell.
Musto shared the stage with Leslie Wang, who discussed her book, Outsourced Children: Orphanage Care and Adoption in Globalizing China.
