Justice and Texas

I've put up a new post on Inspired to Action, talking about the idea of proximate justice.You may ask "what is proximate justice?" Good question! Go over to I2A and find out. I want to hear some people's thoughts on this topic.

On a semi-related note, today the Texas Attorney General's office has released their 2008 report on human trafficking in Texas. You can read the report for yourself: "The Texas Response to Human Trafficking". I've done a quick skim of it; it has some 21 recommendations for changes to current laws and actions to be taken. A bit hard to get through for the average person. But, at the end in Appendix B, there are summaries of fifteen recent news stories from Texas on people held in forced labor or sexual slavery.

The U.S. Department of State estimates that between 14,500 and 17,500 are trafficked into the U.S. from Asia, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe, and many more are trafficked domestically within the United States each year. About one in five people trafficked have been in Texas. (That's at least 3000 every year right here at home.) This is in my back yard - what can I do to change this? The first thing is to talk about it, open my eyes and others, and make people want to see it change. The Underground Railroad (and need for it) is not resigned to historical footnote; it's an active road today.

Tags: Texas Attorney General, Human Trafficking, Report, Proximate Justice