Original subtitles

The subject of Alternative Views news magazine for the evening is boy

prostitution, the widespread use and abuse of male children for sexual

Some of the language in the program may be offensive to some people.

Admittedly, the whole subject is offensive.

Investigations in other cities have shown that boys 13, 14, even younger,

coerced into prostitution with threats of physical violence and are sometimes

shipped across state lines, shipped to the older adult men who desire young

for sexual acts.

Occasionally, these boys' episodes with their older clients ends in physical

violence. There are men who seek young boys to torture and sometimes to kill.

Young boy prostitutes, 14 and 15 years old, explained one reason they sell

bodies to older men is for money. For some, especially the runaways, the money

means survival.

A child and adolescent psychiatrist explained another motivation as revenge

against a father, stepfather, or older man who sexually molested him at an

earlier age.

Best information I have is that these kids die.

They waste away.

They kill themselves.

Somebody kills them.

That's it. And we're talking about over half. Over half of the kids who make

their living this way for a period don't survive adolescence.

The slaughter of the innocents. It's the greatest slaughter of the innocents

since Herod.

And it goes on and on and on. And when the public gets a hint of it, nothing

happens.

Part two of Boys for Sale, the tragedy of male children being sexually

by older men, tonight on Alternative Views News Magazine.

In our previous program, the first section of this two -part series on Boys

Sale, the widespread use and abuse of youth for the gratification

of various men around the country, we talked about the general nature, who's

involved, what kids, where they come from, how they got involved in it, the

nature of the men themselves, the ages, the fact that they come from the

highest...

the socio -economic and political stratum of American society,

the fact that this is a very widespread thing and that it is hushed up

generally, and it's extremely violent.

Kids are killed.

Many kids are killed and tortured every year, as well as abused.

Tom Philpott is still with us, history professor at the University of Texas,

Mark McKinnon, former editor of the Daily Texan.

But before we get into tonight's program further, we will review some of the

most important points of the first section of Boys for Sale for people who

not have seen the first program.

Investigations in other cities have shown that boys 13, 14, even younger,

coerced into prostitution with threats of physical violence and are sometimes

shipped across state lines, shipped to the older adult men who desire young

for sexual acts.

Occasionally, these boys' episodes with their older clients ends in physical

violence. There are men who seek young boys to torture and sometimes to kill.

The President's Commission on Obscenity found, this is the commission that

Richard Nixon repudiated, it mentioned in passing that...

Child pornography was a phenomenon of the abuse of children, and then went on

say that for every female prostitute of any age in the United States, there are

nine boys underage who are prostitutes. And there was a callboy ring operated

out of New York City, which had phone hookups with Houston, Atlanta, Los

Angeles, New Orleans, Washington, D .C., and that callboy ring had a list of

10 ,000 clients.

who could call and with a credit card purchase a boy.

Hello. Hello, this is credit card number 06789.

I'd like to make an order, please. Go ahead.

I'm looking for a young male, blonde hair, blue eyes.

Body hair or no body hair?

Thick body hair, please.

What age?

Ten to twelve.

Butch or femme?

Butch, please.

What is your address?

I'm at the Houston Marriott Hotel, room 313.

Wire me $200 now by credit card and have $100 in cash for the boy. He'll be

there in 30 minutes. Thank you. Thank you.

In Houston, I give the figure based on, I think, prudent calculations

that upwards of 350 boys a year are killed deliberately because of this.

more die of drug overuse, malnutrition.

of suicide the national toll per year is in the thousands every year

kids die violently because of this and to the best of my knowledge most men

who seek sex from boys are not homosexuals to the

extent that they have active sex lives at the peer level they are heterosexual

many of them have no peer sex at all

There are gay people who are what we call pederasts, that is, men who lust

children, especially boys.

But it appears to be the case that most such men are not gay, that their

attraction is for young, defenseless children,

especially boys, because they're more exotic, more forbidden.

It is not a matter of gay rights as advocated by

practically anybody.

This is a much different sort of phenomenon.

The reason that the gay community usually scorns any investigation

of the subject is that they know that the average person in the public will

blame homosexuals and homosexuality for the phenomenon.

regardless of what facts are presented.

The kind of individuals involved are down the line, almost in every instance

the cases I've investigated, men who are very powerful, usually very wealthy,

and usually administrate control over a large number of people.

A 16 -year -old boy came to us telling how he'd started as a prostitute at age

12 and now is employed by a large Houston corporation.

The corporation pays him from a well -covered slush fund.

I'm working right now, you know.

Like, just, you know, with the corporation.

What's that? How does that work?

Well, when their executives or, you know, their business people are in town,

they're sent to our apartment, and we entertain them while they're here.

Okay, what's that entertainment usually involve?

What do they usually demand, or what do they want?

Well, it's...

all kinds of sex and perversions. There's no two alike.

I've decided that.

Subsequent to the making of this interview, this boy's mutilated body was

It's closely attached to the major financial, commercial, industrial,

educational institutions of our society.

It's run by the same people who run those. It's frequented by the same

who occupy management positions in those. It's not the mafia.

It's an adjunct of clean business.

It's serving the most respectable people we have in our society, the people who

are the elite.

The Texas House Committee has been charged with looking at the problem. Two

public hearings later, the committee has been unable to make any serious

progress. Its budget was slashed from $80 ,000 to $15 ,000, hardly enough to

an honest probe.

And the committee chairman admits to knowing of the problem in Houston, but

he's been told to back off.

When we started this committee, we asked for money to do an adequate

investigation to determine just how serious the problem of child

child prostitution, sexual exploitation is here in Texas, which I think is a

proper thing for this committee to do.

Now, that was the first indication that we had pressure on us. The second

indication was when I appeared before the House Administration Committee, when

they chopped our budget and subsequent conversations with certain members that

said, we have got to stop our investigation. Why did they want you to

I don't know why.

I have no... Do you plan to find out? I plan to find out. I think it's serious

that they were getting this kind of pressure.

Let's continue talking about this situation.

which kind of is good for several aspects of

who's involved, what happens to them, and what doesn't happen to them. Okay,

I'll read a wire service release which came out of Dallas and

which said at the top, broadcasters note nature, repeated, broadcasters note

nature, and also said, note discretionary material.

Here's the copy. A 30 -year State Human Resources Department employee has been

arrested in Dallas on charges of sexually abusing a child.

The Department of Human Resources officials say 55 -year -old Howard Ray

was suspended yesterday from his job as Medical Services Programs Director

statewide.

Police say they found 200 to 300 pictures of nude boys in Parker's home.

Officers say a 16 -year -old runaway boy alleged Parker had sex with him while

he lived with Parker.

A spokesman for the Department of Human Resources in Dallas says the 30 -year

veteran employee charged on sex offenses has been suspended without pay.

It goes on to say that this is routine procedure.

It repeats that he's charged with the abuse of a child he picked up on the

street as the kid was hitchhiking.

It says that the boy alleges that Parker kept him in that apartment of his for a

month and that Parker repeatedly attacked him during that time.

Police say a search of Parker's house uncovered 200 to 300 photographs of boys

in various states of attire, and many showed them engaging in sex. Now, it

happens to be the case that those boys were charges of the Department of Human

Resources.

And here's what happened in the case.

Mr. Parker went under the care of a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist said that prosecution would be damaging to Mr. Parker and

prevent his recovery.

The judge took that into consideration in the pretrial hearing and let him go.

And the state of Texas paid for his psychiatric care and they returned him

the job after his rehabilitation.

He went back to work. He went back to work. What about the kids?

Did they do anything to rehabilitate them?

Whatever they were supposed to be doing in the first place.

Let's take a look at the children involved and their lives.

Robin Lloyd, author of For Money or Love, the definitive book on boy

prostitution in America.

I think that it's been described as a national horror.

I don't think it's a national horror. I think it's a national tragedy.

My findings are that the boys that get into this...

as described in the title of the book, for money or love, they're not really in

it for the money. I think that they're in it for what they perceive to be adult

attention or adult affection.

That's where it becomes a tragedy. If you take a 12 -year -old boy who comes

into a strange town, he's broke, he's cold, he doesn't have anything, he's

hungry, and then the other street boys will tell him, hey, you know, you've got

something you can sell.

And he finds he has this marketable commodity I mentioned earlier.

So now he goes to the apartment with a strange man.

They go to bed together.

The next day he's out on the street and he's looking for now the same kind of

protection, that same knife.

Their life is sad.

It's 100 % sad. They get up, you know, one or two or three during the day and

they go out and they have to earn money and they're treated bad.

They eat.

Only when they're fed by somebody else and they never get anything for

they always have to return sexual favors for it. They sometimes get beaten, they

get robbed, they get pushed.

You know, the police abuse them, everybody abuses them. What do you do

money?

How much are you guys giving for tricks?

You ought to be able to make some bucks.

We're going to get more than $5.

Trying to get some money, but we need it bad.

$20 for the days over.

No other way you can make money?

Can't find no coke bottles around these days. People want to tuck them all up.

Most of the kids don't want to be where they are. They don't want to...

engage in this lifestyle.

And if you give them help, an awful lot of them, a very high percentage of them

are quite anxious either to go home or to get a job, go back to school, to live

a normal happy life. They are not into this really rotten thing because they

like it. If they stay in it long enough, they develop attitudes that make it

very difficult for them to do anything else.

If you work here in our center and you do not develop a bad memory, you don't

work here very long.

The tragedies, the violence, the fact that

some of the kids that come into us are killed because they cannot escape the

exploitation is a very hard thing to bear.

Our staff does not really last very long here.

Who's running?

I can't tell you.

Why? They did something?

Something like that.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying.

Well, if they have that many kids,

what's their, where is it located?

What part of town?

I'm not sure.

But you're not going to tell me the location.

They're killing them.

They're running slowly, breaking fingers, toes, ankles.

The youth then detailed how boys are procured and then held by the service.

Strictly all the boys from Houston.

All the boys from Houston.

Oh, no, these guys, you know, like hitchhikers that are hitchhiking, and

pick them up, give them a place to stay, and then tell them, look, you owe us

some money.

All fairly young?

Very young.

What's the youngest?

About nine.

Nine years old.

Well, this is one little kid's school. But they have all the way up to, what,

18, 20?

21. Do they provide y 'all with protection?

I mean, are they protected?

No, Vice doesn't touch them.

But you don't know why?

Or do you know why? I don't know why.

All I know is Vice doesn't touch them.

Do they teach the kids how to perform sexually at this point? They teach them

how to do it?

Well, usually they get some.

They train them?

What happens if a kid won't perform today? You can kind of get down on it

heavy.

No, they just get rid of it.

Well, how do they keep you quiet?

You know, so you won't talk.

Well, they usually have an exam.

I'll break a finger or two.

Have they done that in front of you?

Yeah, they've done it a couple of times.

Some John, you know, they didn't pay up.

One time they took him into the room and they broke it.

I was told our undercover investigator, a former drug rehabilitation counselor

and sex therapist, that they are not proud of what they do.

You don't live at home?

I go home once in a while.

Your mother know you do that? She doesn't care?

She don't like me coming around the house too much.

If I do that, she don't like me coming around too much.

Why not?

She says she just don't like her son being hustling and stuff like that.

She knows you're hustling?

Yeah. This dude wanted to take some pictures of me for $100 tonight.

You know, stuff like that.

This is stupid stuff.

Why do you say it's stupid? You're doing it.

Well, hey, you gotta live.

I'm ashamed of it, too. You're ashamed of it? Sure.

Why? Hey, man, I wasn't brought up this way.

What kind of family are you from?

I have real nice people.

I mean, you know, it was me that messed up. Do your parents know what you're

doing? I don't know. She'd know. I'd never let her know. And I've heard them

many ways already.

Well, the reason I'm here is, you know, when I was 13 years, well, I was 10

years old when my mom got remarried.

And when she did, this thing she married came into my room and raped me.

And they had to take me to the hospital and put three stitches in me.

And I was 20 or 10.

Yeah. So then what happened? How'd you end up leaving home?

When I turned 13, I just, you know, packed up my bags and trucked on.

What do your parents think you're doing, or what's your mother think you're

doing? I don't know what they think. I haven't written them a letter since the

year before last.

They don't care, you don't think?

No. This boy was partially a victim of poverty.

On the streets, though, you find boys from varied backgrounds.

One 15 -year -old from a wealthy family tells of being cast out because he was

failing in school.

His parents are divorced.

Neither his father nor his mother wants to care for him.

He started out as a prostitute when he was 12.

You going to keep hustling in here?

Yeah, I have to. I mean, you know, where's a 15 -year -old going to get a

It isn't too likely.

What do you think about what you do? Are you proud of it?

No.

Thank God.

Disgusting, revolting, you know.

Why do you want to do something that's disgusting and revolting? Well, you got

to eat and you got to sleep, you know. The worst I could do is kill me, you

know. Well, that's pretty bad.

Yeah. I mean, aren't you worried about that? Don't you value your living?

No, right now I don't. You don't value your life?

Not really.

You don't want to stay alive?

I mean, I want to stay alive and all, but, you know, if I die, what the...

I mean, it can't be much worse.

I know. I mean, is it that bad out there? Don't you look forward to the day

you get a good job?

Yeah, but that's all I can do is look forward, you know.

Live each day as it comes.

So you're really not happier?

No. I'd much rather be at home, you know. Well, down in Houston, they have

streets where they hustle, which you don't find in some other cities, right?

That's right.

Now, apparently, these are the entrepreneurs.

DC guy talked about, right? These are cold little kids looking for money to

some food, money to get a room, hopefully with some privacy, with

they can't get any privacy.

To put it in the bluntest terms,

at two in the morning, when the bars close,

the boys who had only one customer that night, and need more money, or haven't

had any customers at all, start bidding against each other for the favors of

whatever pederasts are patrolling the street.

You've actually observed that? Yes, yes.

That's at 2 o 'clock. It lasts for about an hour, a little longer, and then some

kids are left, and many of them have nowhere to go.

They might have what they call a trick pad that they can go to, and I hope they

get the 25 bucks to pay the rent there the next day.

I've seen them climb under cars.

to get shelter and warmth.

To sleep, you mean? Yes, at four in the morning on this one night in November

when it was cold, and the boys had T -shirts on, not jackets, and they didn't

have jackets.

They were mostly destitute, what you might say, street people.

Well, they might come from well -to -do homes, Doug, but when they're gone for a

few months, they're poor. They're dying out.

They are now poor.

A rough count that I made was that there are 400 kids in an area of half a

square mile.

Let me finish the story.

The police then came and rounded them up in vans.

And I heard over police radio that their count was that there were 400 kids.

And they drove them to a suburb of Houston called Pasadena and let them

Why did they do that?

They did it because if they formally arrested them, they would have had to

them and put them someplace and they had no room for them. If they had room for

them, they couldn't have protected them from other people in the jails.

They didn't have the heart.

to arrest them.

Technically, they arrested them by taking them into custody, but they

have the heart to do any more.

They wanted to clean up the street because this was the week before the

election in 1980.

They had no place to find shelter for them because there were only 42 beds in

the whole city, and some of those were questionable as to their safety for the

boys. So they took them for a ride and let them out. They didn't have anything

else to do.

Tom, is race a factor here, and if so, in what degree, what extent?

It's a factor in a surprising way, Frank.

We've already mentioned, but maybe not emphatically enough, that these kids are

poor.

Once they're out on the street, even if they come from middle -class families,

they become poor.

But overwhelmingly, the runaway kids are from poor families, from struggling

families. You would assume then that they would be heavily minority kids.

isn't the case.

Overwhelmingly, the kids who are throwaways, runaways, who hit the

work in the life are white.

Part of the reason is that the market among the well -to -do men for boys

is a white market. The men want white kids.

They don't want Chicanos. They don't want black kids. They want white kids,

kids, Nordic -looking kids.

The ideal type.

What about wealthy black or Chicano males?

They also tend to prefer white kids.

You can find, in what's called the farm league, in the parks, on the streets, at

the curbs, totally on their own, living hand to mouth, roughing it. You can

find minority kids.

But they have a hard time.

They have a hard time getting customers. Mostly, they get employed.

In the dark, literally. They work in the cubicles in the magazine stores where

their customers won't see them.

There's an ugly term called glory hole for the kind of thing that

happens in the cubicles.

I think the name is suggestive enough itself, what it means. It means that

the customer doesn't have to see.

The person who's servicing him and then the person who's getting the service

fantasizes that the little boy is blonde and blue -eyed and white.

What about Atlanta then? You were talking in a previous program about this

the situation with the Atlanta kids.

Well, I think there are indications, as I said, that the kids there are

hustlers. They are hustlers who are out working to help their families. They are

not throwaways. They are not runaways.

And they were in the farm circuit. They were working out of a park.

They were not in the penthouses. They were not in call boy services.

Black kids are out there working and they're not getting the best trade.

They're getting what is called rough trade.

Men who will pay less and want more and be more likely to inflict violence as

part of the price.

Another thing I'd like to say here is that...

On the basis of what I've learned over the last three years, I have a

feeling, it's not a firm conclusion by any means, but it's a strong feeling

that there's a second reason why the kids out there caught up in this are

primarily white.

The first reason is that the rich men want white boys. I think there's a

reason, and that is...

that poor, struggling, black families are taking better care of their kids

white families are.

They're not pushing them out. The boys aren't running away.

They're keeping the contact with home, even if they do have to resort to this

for economic reasons.

And when the families find out it's happening, they accept the kids and they

love them.

And they don't punish them, reject them, and throw them out. What about the kids

themselves? What happens to them?

Assuming they're ones that live, and can they get out of the life? And what

happens to them when they do? What are they like?

In the first place, they mostly don't survive.

They mostly, literally, don't live to be 20 years old.

As far as I know, the best information I have is that these kids die.

They waste away.

They kill themselves.

Somebody kills them.

That's it. And we're talking about over half. Over half of the kids who make

their living this way for a period don't survive adolescence. They don't become

adults. Those who do have a tremendously difficult time.

Of course it does damage. It does tremendous damage to self -esteem.

You have to grow up with a general bitterness towards adults where you find

these strangers now in true life.

You're literally being used all the time.

Mutilated. It's not even... Damage is a quiet word for the mutilation of a

child's spirit.

We cannot take a seven or eight year old and think that seven or eight year old

has the same sexual needs and drives and concepts as you and I.

We have to realize that children see things differently, use material

differently, and have different ways of integrating experience.

Children cannot integrate anal sodomy at eight or nine.

The fact is, it's all they know how to do. It's all they're good at.

I came to know very well a

22 -year -old hustler.

masquerading as a 16 -year -old for whom

friends and I were able to find a job,

but it wasn't a good enough job for him.

He knew the risks.

Over the years, he, although he was white and blonde, he had to do more and

and more for less and less and less, turn more and more tricks a day.

As he got older? As he got older.

One of the things that I know happened to him in

the last year was that he had to be subjected to penetration with bottles.

And the men played the game of whether or not they'd break the bottle off in

or not and cut him.

That kind of thing. When he was 17, he didn't have to do that, and he got more

money. At 22, he pretended he was 16.

The man pretended he was 16.

He got less money.

He had to turn more tricks.

But he didn't know what else to do.

He felt it was the one thing he was good at.

He also admitted to being miserable.

What are some of the legal problems here?

How come more of, one, the organization that's exploiting these boys hasn't been

uncovered? and to the men who are participating in these crimes.

Well, take the boys' homes, for instance.

In the case in San Antonio, which is still pending, there was an eyewitness

walked into the room of the director of the home at four in the morning because

he was sure there would be a little boy in there. And there was a six -year -old

boy in bed with this supposed priest.

Now, the eyewitness testimony...

that a boy was in bed with an old man doesn't do anything in the courtroom. It

doesn't prove that there was sex going on.

If the little boy testifies, who is going to take the word of a little boy

against the word of, say, a real priest?

And what little boy is going to say that a priest... Violated. Violated.

It's a hard arrest to make. It's hard to get a warrant.

It's hard to get an arrest.

It's hard to get a conviction.

And then it's hard to get a real sentence.

Very hard. Nobody wants to put anybody away on this kind of charge because the

evidence is, by its nature, very, very shaky.

And very controversial as well. And that just points to another facet of this

problem is that often it's just ignored, preferentially ignored by the courts

and by the police and by society because they just don't want to believe it's

happening. I remember when we did our reports, we thought it significant

because the nature of the case involves some Austin personnel and citizens, that

we put it on the front page, because I was shocked personally by it.

And when we printed these stories, we just were barraged with letters from

people saying, basically, I don't want to read this kind of stuff over my

morning coffee.

You know, even though it happened, even though we documented it, and we'd gone

out of our way to make sure that it was all backed up with fact, people just

refused to want to...

not only to believe it, but to even believe that it happens.

So that's part of the problem. And another part of the problem is, of

were shocked when we found out the extent and broad nature of this problem

pederasty and what all it involves.

But we were truly shocked when we found out originally, initially when we

started this a few years back, that the police department didn't even know what

pederasty was. I mean, I ran in, I won't say the police department, but I know

that I was dealing with one officer in sex crimes division who's no longer in

sex crimes division.

And I was trying to get, do my part for truth and justice, and trying to get to

the root of the problem. And I said, well, tell me about your case history of

pederasty.

And he just went blank. He had no idea what I was talking about. Now, to their

credit, I will say that the Austin Police Sex Crimes Division has come a

way since then. But if the police don't know what it is, then certainly most

members of society won't know what it is. So when they see it in the papers,

editors don't know what it is, so they're not going to print it in the

place, but occasionally when it does go through, society just writes it off as

an aberration, a very isolated... Well, how are the police organized? You

mentioned the Sex Crime Division, but there's also the Vice Squad, so

The Sex Crime Division is a subset of Vice.

No, it's part of homicide in almost every city. Oh, is it? It's part of

homicide. Vice has to do with...

pornography, obscenity, prostitution, things involving consenting adults,

may be crimes that are performed in public or commercially.

A sex crime is something that involves a direct violation of the law or involves

things with kids or child pornography.

Do you have a feel for, say, the budget and the number of personnel in vice

squads compared to sex crime divisions in various places?

No, I really don't, Frank. It's something I ought to know more about.

emphasis the city, the police department places on one. I do in Austin at that

time anyway. At that time they had three people in the entire sex crimes

division and they were so overworked with just, you know, that's when the

rapist was around and what have you.

That pretty much exhausts their time and they were concerned about the issue,

but they just said frankly we're not staff We don't have the personnel to

is a major crime. The incidence is high attempted rape is common It's extremely

hard to track down a rapist. These guys are working extremely hard and then we

charge them with the duty of Cleaning up the streets and in Austin the streets

are clean Houston. They're not but How can they go behind the walls and find

what's going on indoors? That's extremely hard to do. Has there been

investigation by any police or the FBI or the judicial system of this

phenomenon? Or is it that it's a fairly recent phenomenon, or is it just

something that they haven't dealt with historically or currently?

There have been legislative investigations.

There was a national investigation a couple of years ago.

looking toward the goal of national legislation to protect kids.

But no, there hasn't been much. There are some who would like to tell us that

the problem does not exist, that to say Houston is a major center for boy

prostitution is to overstate the case.

That is what the Houston police tell us. There again, we don't have as many

male prostitutes as we do female prostitutes.

But when you start talking about juvenile boys...

14, 15, 16 years old.

Two or three cases are too many.

And we do have a few of those.

Well, how would you, talking about that a little further, how would you define

the problem of young boy prostitution in Houston as far as the size of the

problem?

Well, I'm not going to say it's one of the major problems of our city.

Again, we have a certain amount of it.

It's our intention to try to keep the lid on it to keep it from getting any

word. Listen to Atlanta Police sex crimes detective Douglas McCoy, a 10

veteran. It is almost, at this point, especially at this time of the year,

almost an epidemic.

Yet only a very few young boys are ever arrested.

In 1978, there were seven.

So far in 1979, we've had three male prostitution charges.

The facts are the Atlanta Police Department is understaffed. Vice and sex

detectives carry a heavy workload.

Rapes, for example, are up almost 100 % this year.

Boy prostitution is near the bottom on the priority list. Local police have to

change their attitudes towards the boys, thinking of them more as victims than

as criminals.

The change in philosophy has worked for the Los Angeles Police Department and

serves as an example for other cities.

When you've got a 15 -year -old boy...

out on the street selling his body, you've got to understand why he's out

It's usually due to a poor home life.

He's there to obtain the necessities of life.

And you've got to look at that boy as a victim.

Even though he's out there committing the crime of prostitution, you still

to look at him as a victim and why he's out there.

When you do bring them in, what do you do with them? You certainly don't just

throw them in a county jail somewhere.

It takes us anywhere from two to six hours to interview.

You talk to one of these boys for two to six hours when you first get them in?

Yes, sir.

Initially, they don't have trust in the police department because usually

they've had contact with a uniformed policeman, and the uniformed policeman

book them curfew or run away, and they're sort of leery of the police

department. We'll sit down and we'll gain the...

The kid's confidence, we'll talk to him, we'll tell him if he is involved in

anything, that he has anything having to do with sex, that he has done nothing

wrong at all.

And we treat him the best we can. We'll keep in contact with the victims, and we

keep calling them weeks later, and we'll go out and we'll buy them lunch.

This is weeks later, you go out and get together and see how the boy is doing?

See how they're doing, progressing, and they call us quite a bit.

Rehabilitation for young boy prostitutes necessitates a change in the way they

are handled by penal institutions.

In San Francisco, boy prostitutes from around the nation congregate near some

the plushest hotels.

But in San Francisco, a boy prostitute who was arrested is given special

treatment. Sheriff Richard Hungisto has set up a new program to deal with young

boys. The heterosexual inmates are very likely to abuse, to

rape.

younger person or the person they think has had homosexual experiences on the

streets. They will take advantage of them by force, and sometimes they will

very, very brutal. It's a problem amongst children, juveniles, and adults.

So what has been your answer here?

We house the gay inmates separately. We don't mix them in with the heterosexual

population just for that reason.

And, of course, the same thing is true with juveniles.

As you view this problem and people like this come in off the street, how do you

handle it?

Well, what we do here is to do what we can to make sure that if there are any

psychological problems that they're dealt with, and also to try to aid them

post -release help, giving them opportunities as much as we can to find

to have a place to stay and to get back on their feet so that they don't have to

sell their bodies to make money. Here in Austin, the sex crime unit now is...

to my observation, a solid unit doing the best it can. And they have something

that's rare in the whole state. They have an officer whose sole job is to

counsel the victims of sex crimes.

She's an old student of mine and a friend of mine.

Her job was funded by the U .S. government. She lost her job in the

budget last month. And she had to fight, lobby in the city council.

to get retained as a police officer they've retained her for a year but the

overall budget was cut and her job uh you know will remain in jeopardy and

a vital job if i could just add to the problems of investigation and how tom

i learned about all this we just finally realized that tom thankfully has

carried on and updated the material and kept a close look my

Full participation only lasts for a period of about six months to a year.

When you were a reporter?

When I was a reporter and myself and another former editor of the Daily

just as soon as we got hooked on it, I mean, as soon as we found out what was

going on, we went after it with entire abandon for a good period of three to

months. Almost every day we spent, we forgot our classes, we forgot our work

the newspaper. We just, we were determined to get to the root of it.

And after six months, we had touched the tip of the iceberg, and we realized at

that time, after spending inordinate amounts of time, money, and energy,

we didn't have to spend already, that we needed to be funded by some sort of

organization much larger than ourselves and a staff much larger than ourselves

to continue to find out really what was going on. So I can see how law

enforcement agencies, with what little funding they have, particularly during a

tax time such as ours, that it's hard to do.

And as I said, the more we found out, the more questions propped up and the

deeper it became. There are so many things. If it's all right to range

little bit here, it ought to be said that in academia there's been virtually

contribution.

I learned about this whole phenomenon as a teacher when a student of mine called

my attention to the TV documentary Boys for Sale, which was made in Houston. I

was embarrassed that I didn't know anything about the subject.

mentioned it to sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, social

They didn't know anything about it either. Then I went into the

found that it was first meager, and second, heavily oriented toward the

and explication of the pederast, like the lawyer's commentary I quoted to you.

It's considered a dirty subject, and people aren't supposed to go into it.

Every semester when I lecture on it, I have students get up and walk out.

I used to have complaints made to the department, to the college, to the

university, and so on, that I was doing pornographic things in the classroom.

That's abated. But people still get upset and walk out.

Maybe not because they are offended, but because they're immiserated by it and

they want to get away from it.

People don't like to look at reality.

Well, especially if it's real.

This stuff is horrible.

At any rate, if the police department from any major city went over to the

educational institution in its area and asked for a contribution from the

faculty, that faculty could contribute practically nothing.

Academics have been not necessarily remiss. They have been oblivious to

Can I ask you, unless it would compromise your information system, how

about getting your information?

observation, interviewing, and interviewing of many kinds. Interviewing

interviewing people who are willing to talk or on the other side of the street,

so to speak, and investigators.

Have you written any books or are you planning any articles or studies on

working on a book, and I expect it will not be the last book that I'll write

about the subject, and I'll be teaching a course on it in the spring, and as far

as I know, it'll be the first one ever taught in an American college.

Can we talk about the mass media treatment? We've kind of hit on it here

there.

From what I seem to get, the electronic media, particularly a couple of TV

stations, have done most of the work on it, and the newspapers haven't done

much. With the exception of Mark and Gary Fendler. Right, with the exception

the Texan.

Well, it's interesting.

Throughout all the things that we did, we thought, and perhaps we were in a

minority, but we thought it was information that was in the best public

to know, or at least be exposed to, was not touched by any other local media in

town. Do you have any explanation for this? Why didn't the Austin American

Statesman pick up on it? I really don't know. Or the TV station. Did you ever

take it to them?

But actually I think the statesman did run one or two I think they ran the

initial story about Anderson the pharmacist being less and that's what

our interest and of course Did you ever talk to the reporter that did that story

and see why they didn't pursue there? No, I don't think I did I think we got

wrapped up in what we were doing. What about down in Houston? Is there any

evidence of pressure to keep it the lid on down there?

well When Boys for Sale was shown on TV, it was shown first as a nightly series,

and then there was a summary program, which you'll have excerpts of.

The biggest bank in Houston withdrew its advertising from the show and from the

station because it showed that program.

But they didn't withdraw it until the last... Not the last minute. They kept

saying, if you don't kill that program tonight, we're going to withdraw our

advertising, and they did.

And the bank managed to get the other advertisers for that program to withdraw

their advertising.

The Houston Post and the Houston Chronicle, again, that story I mentioned

previous program about the bust of this mansion with this incredibly elaborate

film studio in it, emerges in the Post and the Chronicle as a little

place with some cameras.

Yeah, and the problem is not so much.

that the incidents are ignored, but there's never any follow -up. There's

any investigation.

They just take the easy way out. Something happened, boom, it happened.

day, it's forgotten.

What we need in the media is follow -up and investigation on everybody's part so

that we become sensitized to the issue.

You had some threats of physical violence also when you were doing this

investigation. Well, we were working with some people from Houston who knew a

lot more about it than we did, and they, of course, counseled us and said,

beware.

I had my windshield broken in.

I mean, a brick thrown through my windshield. I don't know if that was

coincidental. I sincerely doubt it, just because of the timing and nature.

Well, this may be one very good reason why there hadn't been a lot of

investigative reporting. Well, Tom can relate his story. In Houston, the

incident has had some problems. Well, the moderator of the show, Boys for

had a shotgun blast go through his window.

and then another one go through his, that is the window of his home, and then

another blast go through the windshield of his car as he was approaching the car

to get into it, that kind of signal usually is sufficient

to warn a person off.

Any one of us in the country, and there aren't very many of us who have worked

intensely on this for a period of years, has received threats.

has been subject to at least feigned attempts.

And the idea is that that should scare us off.

It has worked with a whole lot of people.

The day after part one of Boys for Sale was cablecast, Tom Philpott's van was

vandalized. The tires were slashed, and the accelerator was jammed to the floor.

And then the following week, Tom was shot in what appears to have been an

assassination attempt.

Has anybody been killed, actually?

What about the guy that wrote the book? He got a shotgun blast that did wound

him, I think, pretty seriously, didn't it?

Well, what then should society do about this? How can this problem be dealt

with? Well, it's a tall question.

Law enforcement has to be activated.

And it has to be supported and it has to be seen through the end of the

procedure so that you don't have congressmen pleading not guilty or a

contender ain't getting no penalty.

The kids who are rescued in this process have got to be cared for and helped.

And no one really knows how to do it. But it's got to be done. A way has got

be found. They've got to be helped.

And then most obviously, we've got to find a way to reestablish a society

does not...

throw up, literally, a half million kids a year onto the city streets and leave

them there to be hurt.

American families have to have support.

It's good enough to say to families, love your children, but they have to

the wherewithal to care for their children, and obviously American

not. These kids are not minority kids in the main.

But they're mainly poor kids. They're from hard -driven, hard -living

And it's so very, very sad.

It's so sad that we need to respond to them.

We people who've got our stuff together and who think we know a lot about a lot

of things, we just need to reach out to those kinds of kids. We need to go out

there and find them. How quickly can a city like Houston move in this area?

Well... We can move as quickly in this area as we should, as we have been in

other areas. We can build a billion -dollar Houston center downtown, and we

certainly move quickly to solve human problems and problems of people.

Father McGinnis, do you see a role for big business in Houston in this plan?

Yeah, one role is money.

You know, and a lot can, let's face it, a lot can be done with money.

A lot of alternatives can be offered if we have the money to pay for them. And

there's enough excess money in 10 corporations in this city to do anything

would want to to save every one of these kids.

Jocking as it is, when you put it in perspective, maybe it's really not quite

unexpected considering the history of what the people have been subject to

who have been under the control and rule of these people. And you start to think

about what's been done to the Indians.

The terrible working conditions that people lived in for years and worked

for years. The dangerous condition, the pesticides that people are forced to

ingest.

The lack of safety in the places where we work.

Wars where people are slaughtered.

There's really a long history of this. Is this the same type of impulse turned

focus just...

I'm a small boy, or is this something really unique, you think?

That isn't easy to answer, Frank, because in all honesty, this subject has

baffled me from the time I first became aware of it until this day.

I can't understand it.

And I'm trying very hard, and it's very difficult.

As an historian, I know that this society...

probably above all in the world, in the history of the world, romanticizes

childhood.

But the historical record, child labor, for one thing, indicates that this

society has not been good to children, has not protected children, in fact

is contemptuous of children, heartless to children.

And they're such helpless victims.

Who can they go to? What constituency do they have?

Nobody. The heartlessness that goes into it is certainly

somehow connected with the heartlessness which ground up

the Indians, black people, immigrant

laborers.

poor people in general, which is motivating the cuts in social programs

Blindness to the actual living reality of people's situations.

Yes, it's connected.

But this is the... It's about the most hair -raising thing I think I've

encountered in studying the history of my country.

The slaughter of the innocents. It's the greatest slaughter of the innocents

since Herod.

And it goes on and on and on. And when the public gets a hint of it, nothing

happens. The case of Price Daniel is instructive there.

It came out in the custody hearing of Mrs. Daniel, who admitted

to shooting her husband, that he attacked their son.

And there was testimony that he had relations with other adolescents.

There wasn't any inquiry as to what that might mean for society. Price Daniel is

one of the major names of Texas.

And all these other names that we've mentioned of people who have been caught

and let off, there doesn't seem to be any willingness.

to make the connections which you have implied and face them.

And it's time we did, right?

Yeah, you're damn right it's time we did.

There needs to be... police action. There needs to be action in the academy

which I am part to study this. There has to be rehabilitation for kids. And most

of all, American families have got to be put on a footing where their children

are not in jeopardy of being lost in this way.

Whole society has got to answer for this.

Do something about it. If we don't make this move, what do you think the results

would be in Houston? It'll get worse and worse and worse.

There'll be kids killed.

in the dead of night, and dumped on the highway, like they are right now.

It'll get worse. It'll never get better.

You don't sit back and see something like this, since history has proven

and just watch it, and it gets better.

It'll get worse. Much worse.

Where can I go?

What am I looking for?

How can I touch what's deep inside?

What have I lost?

How can I find a love at last

to ease my mind?

Who can I find to tell me who I am?

Who can I find to hold me closely?

What have I got? How can I give a love

at last to ease my mind?

For love nor money do I seek among the streets by day or night.

I've found it is not there.

But maybe just that one day, one time, someday I will find

a love at last to ease my mind.

Who can I find to tell me who I am?

Who can I find to hold me closely?

What have I got?

How can I give a love at last

to ease my mind?