Christopher Alan Cannon , Columnist December 1, This September marked one of the few occasions that I could recall a highly publicized sentencing of a pimp in Cleveland. The pimp in question is Dorian Brown, and with the aid of Jason Dowell, he had constructed an interconnected and expansive prostitution ring that targeted underage girls between 15 and 17 years old.
He established makeshift brothels by arranging meetups between prostitutes and potential clients in hotels throughout Northeast Ohio. Brown was recently given an year prison sentence.
They are guilty of mishandling cases associated with missing women of color that were labeled as sex workers or drug addicts. Sowell, arrested in October , was a serial killer who targeted African-American women throughout Cleveland. The reality of sex work is nothing new to me. I knew of women who used Backpage, an open and public forum that is similar to the setup of Craigslist, to engage in various forms of sex work. I never perceived it as something distant or incomprehensible.
It was as common as drug use or gang violence. To be quite honest, I was much more surprised to finally see legal action being directed at a small fraction of the predators that have always participated in human trafficking.
These women and their stories are often unheard. Many of the women killed by Sowellβincluding the aunt of my close friend Olivia Oluonyeβwere accused of being sex workers or drug addicts; both of these titles carry immense social stigmas, and ones that often resulted in their cases being ignored. It would never be my intention to critique the value or worth of sex workers that engage in these activities willingly and are of legal age.
