Somebody's Daughter: Inside the Toronto/Halifax Pimping Ring

Andrea Levan is an associate professor and co-ordinator of the Women’s
Studies Program at Thorneloe College, Laurentian University.

As the preface explains, the purpose of this book is to provide a window
on the violent underworld of juvenile prostitution so that it may be
better understood. The author describes the operations of a pimping ring
that was based in Nova Scotia and the actions that were taken by the
police task force to dismantle it, recounting the desperate stories of
several young girls who were drawn into prostitution and terrorized by
their pimps. In re-creating the fear, hopelessness, and numbing drudgery
that characterized their lives, the author broadens our understanding of
the reality of juvenile prostitution.

Among the book’s flaws are numerous errors in sentence structure and
typography. More important, the author has changed the names of
real-life people and created composite characters based on more than one
story; the overall effect is to give the book a tabloid quality.
Jessome’s own role—how he became interested or involved in the
story, and what his relationship is to the central characters—is never
made clear. This is particularly problematic because he tends to glorify
the efforts of the police in “rescuing” the girls, while at the same
time casting doubt on the prostitutes’ accounts of police brutality.
His uncritical view of the police trivializes the extent to which the
criminal justice system contributes to the harassment of prostitutes and
to their sense of entrapment.

Nevertheless, the book is worth reading. The experiences of the young
women and the understanding approach taken by the police task force are
instructive and serve as a starting point for further discussion of the
problem.