Calls for More Women in Secret Service Amid Prostitution Scandal

[boston bean]

Washington has begun asking if the Secret Service needs more women in the organization in the wake of the prostitution incident in Cartagena, Colombia that has led to six agents being fired or resigning.

The call comes after it became public on Saturday that a woman named Paula Reid, who heads the Miami field office for the Secret Service, which also overseas South America, was the supervisor who moved quickly to contain last week’s scandal.

Eleven agents were pulled from their assignments as part of the advance staff preparing for President Obama’s trip to Cartagena after allegations emerged that one of the agents had a dispute over payment with a prostitute.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/calls-for-more-women-in-secret-service-amid-prostitution-scandal/

[Cirque du So-What]

1. I agree with this suggestion

I wonder how many other incidents fly under the radar as a result of a 'good ol' boy' network that appears to be at work in the Secret Service? Of course, many police departments around the country have been integrated - both in gender and in race - for several years, and the crimes of police officers are still being covered up by their compatriots. Still, I cannot help believing that an increase in the percentage of female Secret Service officers would help toward curtailing some of the horseshit like what just occurred in Colombia.

[Little Star]

2. Makes me wonder...

what the numbers men/women actually are for SS Agents.

[boston bean]

3. Here is some history on women Secret Service Agents..

http://www.wifle.org/conference1991/pdf/46-52.pdf

[MadrasT]

4. 11% female

Currently, only 11 percent of the US Secret Service is female according to Maloney.

Secret Service scandal linked to lack of women in agency

[iverglas]

5. corporate culture and all that

Unfortunately, a greater proportion of women in the ranks won't operate by itself to change the corporate culture.

Leadership is needed. The very idea that these assholes -- and the ones in the military doing the same thing -- thought their behaviour was acceptable, or decided to engage in behaviour they knew was unacceptable, is the real problem.

Messages need to be sent. Using foreign junkets for sexual escapades is not acceptable. Period. And of course it's high time that militaries started sending the same message.

Apart from the political/ethical issues involved in prostitution generally and this incident in particular,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Colombia

Prostitution is widespread and exacerbated by poverty and internal displacement.

... It is estimated that there are 35,000 children working as prostitutes in Colombia with between 5,000 and 10,000 of them on the streets of Bogotá.

... Colombia is a major source country for women and girls trafficked to Latin America, the Caribbean, Western Europe, Asia, and North America, including the United States, for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. Internally, women and children are trafficked from rural to urban areas for commercial sexual exploitation.

-- good fucking grief -- prostitutes in Colombia? Organized crime, anybody? In Colombia??

Domestically, organized crime networks, some related to illegal armed groups, are responsible for human trafficking for sexual exploitation ...

The old-time reason for prohibiting this kind of activity by people in sensitive positions was the possibility of blackmail. Prostitution may be legal in Colombia, but that doesn't make foreign participants who prefer their activities not to be publicized immune to pressure to commit crimes or have their behaviour exposed.

The possibility that none of the women involved had ties to organized crime is pretty damned slim, I'd think. So the men involved weren't just assholes, they were bizarrely stupid.

[pnwest]

6. This line of thinking bothers me. We need more

women in the Secret Service, so they can be their mothers and monitor their behavior? So the men can have sex with them, instead of hiring pros? I don't get what that is supposed to accomplish, other than once more making women responsible for men's behavior.

Same line of reasoning as making women wear burkas; "You women are too sexy, so cover yourself because I can't control myself." Somehow having more women in the Secret Service is supposed to make the men behave better? Why can't they be responsible for themselves?

[Scout]

7. i don't think it's to make the men behave better...

it's that women are less likely to misbehave, themselves. at least less likely to misbehave in the way this group of men did.

[MadrasT]

8. It bothers me too.

I'd rather see the men held accountable for their behavior than see this response, which sounds to me like, "Men are simply uncontrollable and unreliable because they are men, so let's use women instead."

Reeks of sexism to me.

(The issue of whether of not we need more women in the Secret Service is a side issue and may also merit conversation.)

[pnwest]

9. i totally agree. should be more women, for women's sake.

[seabeyond]

10. that was my first thought, too. a male boss that has clear lines would be as effective.

and of course there should me more female SS agents.