Human Trafficking: Misdirected Prosecution

The issue of human trafficking and forced prostitution is omnipresent in Season Two of The Wire, and David Simon offers a nuanced and thoughtful critique of the current supposedly-remedial policy of the law authorities on the issue.

The discovery of thirteen dead Eastern European girls in a shipping container, as well as the one found floating in the river by Detective McNulty, sets the scene for forthcoming episodes. Coming full-circle, in the final episode a montage shows that in spite of the former instigators of the trafficking having departed, new instigators step in to fill the void and the practice recommences, seemingly interrupted only momentarily.

We see early in the series that other Eastern European girls, who have also been trafficked illegally to the country, are imprisoned and as such face prosecution or deportation, when Bunk and Lester attempt unsuccessfully to extract information from them. Later, when Jimmy plays an undercover john in a successful string operation to expose the brothel, the girls forced to work there are arrested, along with some of the lower-level instigators who coordinate the day-to-day prostitution racket. In fact, the only actor involved in the entire sex trade who isn’t in some way criminalized in The Wire is the john that McNulty catches in order to get the phone number of one of these girls.

The fact that the practice is seen to continue at the end of the Season portrays current policing efforts as futile, and in particular the apportioning of blame to the girls themselves while ‘pardoning’ the men who engage in this practice. In 2007, the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force was established, and ever since ‘busted’ several prostitution rings in Baltimore, with a high profile case in September 2011. Yet, once again, those prosecuted here were the girls themselves, and who after all the victims in this modern-day slavery of human-trafficking. Evidently, Simons utilizes The Wire as a pay to criticize the current evidently inadequate and ineffective policy of criminalizing said girls, while simultaneously ‘pardoning’ the johns.

Ziggy and Nick Sobotka: Blood thicker than water

Aware of it or not, David Simon brought this phrase to life through the juxtaposition of the docklands 'water' environment, and the 'blood' of the Sobotka family ties. The relationship between Ziggy and Nick which plays out in Season 2 is a heart-warming one. Although frequently irritated by his cousin's antics, Nick never gives up on Ziggy and relentlessly and unconditionally supports him, ultimately ostracizing him from important negotiations but selflessly giving him a significant share of the revenue from the various packages Nick ultimately oversees the sale of.

'The family' is often considered a societal institution. For the purposes of our discussion this week regarding institutions, I don't think that 'family' is one of the moreover physical institutions, like the BPD, that Simon tries to criticize through The Wire, and shouldn't be regarded as such. Rather, familial solidarity and compassion is used as a narrative tool by Simon to give supposedly 'bad' characters, who might conduct illicit activities such as theft and drug-dealing, depth and a 'positive' side. This is all part of Simon's rejection of the classic dichotomous 'good v. bad' nature of the police-criminal relationship. Alasdair McMillan deplores the way that, in classic U.S. cop shows, all police officers seem to be 'driven by their own virtuous nature' (McMillan, 2009: 52) alone, and are almost flawless characters. I argue that this extends further to the classic 'villains', or criminals, and through family ties Simon humanizes these 'villains' into 'rough diamonds.'

A future blog post may look at the role of 'family' in the Barksdale criminal 'institution', and consider the similarities with and differences to the role of 'family' with the Sobotkas in the docklands 'institution.'