Saints Under Siege: The Texas State Raid on the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints

7. Large-Scale FLDS Raids: The Dangers and Appeal of Crime Control Theater

178 | 7 Large-Scale FLDS Raids The Dangers and Appeal of Crime Control Theater Camille B. Lalasz and Carlene A. Gonzalez The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) has been portrayed by the media, politicians, and law enforcement officials as a sect that engages in and encourages illegal and immoral behavior . The negative portrayal of this religious group has resulted in two arguably ill-conceived and dangerous large-scale raids on FLDS communities; in 1953 a settlement in Short Creek, Arizona, was raided to save women from the alleged oppression of polygamous marriages, and in 2008 a settlement near Eldorado, Texas, was raided to rescue one alleged victim of sexual and physical abuse. These very public raids and the drastic acts that followed (e.g., taking custody of all FLDS children) propagated an initial illusion of crime control but were ineffective in controlling the targeted crimes and thus can be characterized as “crime control theater” (CCT) (Griffin and Miller 2008). We use the case study method, with evidence from the media and previous studies, to demonstrate how the raids on these communities may be understood in terms of CCT and the dangers of relying on such CCT actions. Background on the FLDS and Large-Scale Raids Polygamy, or plural marriage, was observed by several cultural groups in the United States from the 1600s to the mid-1800s (Francoeur 1995), but it was not viewed as a social and cultural morality problem that deserved legislative action until Brigham Young, the leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints (LDS), officially incorporated the practice into the doctrine of Mormonism in 1852 (Peterson 1992). A short time later the U.S. government began passing acts (e.g., Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, Poland Act of 1874, Edmunds Act of 1882) and prosecuting individuals engaged in plural marriages in an attempt to eliminate the practice (Smith 2010). After more than Crime Control Theater | 179 one thousand successful polygamy or unlawful cohabitation prosecutions against LDS members, Church leader Wilford Woodruff reluctantly decreed that the Church no longer endorsed the practice. Refusing to abandon what they considered to be a major tenet of the Mormon religion and fearing mass persecution, small groups of “fundamentalists” broke away from the Church and settled their own communities in isolated areas across the western United States, Mexico, and British Columbia (Anderson 1992). One such group, the FLDS, created a colony in the 1930s in the border town of Short Creek, now called Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah (Bradley 1993; Castle 2005; Weis 2006). The 1953 Raid on Short Creek The isolation of Short Creek provided refuge for the FLDS community for a brief period; residents were left virtually undisturbed and allowed to continue engaging in plural marriages (Erwin 2009). Increasing media coverage and growing public concern over the perceived immoral activities occurring within the community, however, convinced officials of the need to take action to protect the FLDS women from an enslaved life within a polygamous marriage. At dawn on July 26, 1953, law enforcement officers, under the command of Arizona governor John Howard Pyle, launched a full assault on the community at Short Creek and placed the entire population (i.e., 36 men, 86 women, and 263 children) under military control (Castle 2005). A week later, state welfare workers took custody of 153 Arizonan children and bused them, along with their mothers, to the cities of Phoenix and Mesa, where they were kept isolated from one another, as well as from their fathers or husbands. The state retained custody of these children for up to two years before allowing them to return home to their polygamous lifestyle (Bradley 1993; Maloney 1974; Smith 2010). The officials responsible for initiating the Short Creek raid proclaimed that their actions were appropriate and that the raids were a “success” (Castle 2005). The general public, however, did not share their sentiments. Instead, they were outraged by national news footage that showed gut-wrenching images of children being separated from their parents (Sigman 2006). The media portrayal of the Short Creek raid also led many to view the raid as an inhumane public policy solution and an ineffective way to eliminate polygamy. Thus what had begun as a moral crusade to save women from a polygamous lifestyle became a public relations nightmare (Hylton 2008a). Furthermore, public opinion on plural marriage was evolving; polygamy 180...