my friend sent me this letter (certain bits snipped to protect privacy). it’s hard to say anything in addition to the below comments, but seriously, when the fuck are our courts, police forces, and mass media outlets going to start treating sex workers like, y’know, real people? ugh.

Yesterday (May 15, 2008) in St. Catharines, Judge Stephen Glithero sentenced Wayne Ryczak to one day in jail for manslaughter after he admitted to killing 29-year old Stephine Beck. Beck, a sex worker, was fourteen weeks pregnant when her body was found in a ditch on Seventh Avenue in Vineland in March 2007. Ryczak’s plea bargain allowed him to avoid a 30 month prison sentence, receiving instead three years probation, on the grounds that his mother testified he was a good son, he coached minor league lacrosse, and “has values of family, community and hard work.” (Notably, one condition of Ryczak’s parole is that he not associate with anyone known to have a criminal record, with the exception of his son, who previously received a suspended sentence for assaulting a sex worker.) Additionally, because Beck had “potentially lethal” levels of cocaine in her system, Glithero expressed skepticism over her cause of death despite expert testimony that the deep bruises to her neck were consistent with being held down against a firm surface, and that the official cause of death was strangulation. Ryczak was released from custody May 15.

Unfortunately, the case of Stephine Beck is not an anomaly. Within the last decade, six other women involved in sex work and living with substance abuse problems have been found murdered in the Niagara Region: Dawn Stewart, 32; Nadine Gurczenski, 26; Diane Dimitri, 33; Margaret Jugaru, 26; Cassey Cichocki, 22, and most recently, Shari Bacon, 36. Although the Niagara Regional Police convened a task force in 2007 and have since made one other arrest, Glithero’s sentence is reflective of a community-wide failure to value and protect the lives of some of the region’s most vulnerable citizens. The St. Catharines Standard routinely runs articles about “hookers loyal to their drug problems” (6 March, 2007) while the police department justifies its regular sweeping arrests of prostitutes (and subsequent public naming in The Standard, which does not report the names of men arrested for domestic abuse) by claiming that if you take away the supply, demand will vanish (July 2007). This appalling disdain for and ignorance of the realities and risks faced by sex workers is all the more horrifying when compared to the hysteria and moral outrage expressed by the entire Niagara community during and after the arrests, trials and verdicts of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. That Homolka’s plea bargain was considered a deal with the devil while Ryczak was set free immediately upon pleading guilty is shameful and hypocritical, and reflects a clear double standard when it comes to which lives are valued and which are not.

If anyone would like to donate money, please consider doing so with the Pivot Legal Society.

For more information about the murdered women and sex work in Canada, see the following websites:
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1030820&auth=KARENA+WALTER
http://www.missingpeople.net/mothers_pain.htm
http://pivotlegal.org/Issues/sextrade.htm