Amish Law Enforcement Research Paper

Law Enforcement in Amish Communities

The Amish people are recognized to the public as the “best” people in the world. They read and act upon everything the Bible says and not in any way want to cause any harm to other people, but this is a misconception. It is true that the Amish are positive people and believe in the bible with their entire heart, but they are also human and make mistakes like the “English” folk. Whether the mistakes they make are lying or something that is much more dangerous, they do all this quietly and sometimes with no punishment. This is looked down upon in the “English” world because the church and victims should not stay quiet to preserve the Amish name. In the Amish community they know it is a man and woman and

do not see it as a criminal and a victim. This is why the Amish have no law enforcement in their communities, they don’t believe in it and their actions, abuse, hate crimes, and safety, while being viewed down upon by the public, is not seen as extreme in the Amish community. Like the rest of the world, law enforcement should be involved in the Amish community because of the abuse that happens in the community, for the peoples safety, and because the Amish church’s punishment is to weak.
One reason the law enforcement should be present in Amish community is because abuse happens in the “English” world and it happens in the Amish world. Whether it is sexual abuse or drug abuse, it happens. The Devils Playground shows us Rumspringa, where teens from the years of 16 to 21 participate in the activities of the outside world to see if they want to be Amish or not. This is a film produced to show us what happens during the event of Rumspringa and is intended inform the public that this happens in the Amish communities. In these years, adolescents, boys and girls, participate in the outside world activities like parties, driving, drugs, sex, and some of these do get abused. The use of the outside world’s materialistic things could result in the hurting someone or themselves and this can be very harmful. These teens should not be using drugs and having sex at this age either way, they are way too young and it is illegal. This is a reason that the law should be enforced here because it can help kids stay safe and keep them alive. In the movie Devils Playground, they say “the parties are big and their a lot of fun and lots of drinking and smoking happens”(2002), and this proves that they have no adult supervision at their big parties where drugs and sex might be performed which can sometimes turn to abuse. English parents would find this unacceptable because they want to keep their kids safe and away from those things. What the Amish do to hope the teens stay away is the parent’s let the teens join in on the driving, smoking, and partying and this could result in them losing their child. It would be beneficial to have the law involved here because it would keep things under control or even better; it won’t let this go on any farther.
In addition to drug abuse, sexual abuse also happens in the Amish community and even inside the Amish church. Sexual abuse is overlooked because the women are just that in the Amish world, they are just women and not looked at as victims in these circumstances. If a woman gets raped she has to know not to tell anyone because she is a woman and is less than a man, and a man can do whatever he wants to her and she has to subdue to his authority. In the English world the woman would be greatly encouraged to stand up to the man and let her voice be heard so the man can be prosecuted and so he can learn a lesson. The legal system would agree with the public and not the Amish, which is why the Amish do not have law enforcement interfere with their doings.
An interview was conducted in our classroom with a young Aden Yoder. Aden was born into an Amish family and decided to leave and was shunned for it. Aden presented us with the information that sexual abuse does happen and it does get overlooked because the church doesn’t want the abuse to get out to the public because the church knows they will not be looked up at again if the public knows that sexual abuse happens in the community. The church deals with it very quietly or does not deal with it. Also, Aden said “if a sexually abused woman comes out to tell the church about a member of the Amish community that sexually abused her, she would get shunned for speaking out.” This is wrong in the eyes of the “English” but in the Amish eyes it is a normal practice that has to be respected by women. These acts prove that the law needs to be enforced because the church only cares about their name and being help high to the public eye and not the safety of the community and giving out appropriate punishment for every sinful thing.
Shunning for rape is not enough of a punishment. What the law would do is send the criminal to prison for some time and then send them away with a mark on their record so people know about his actions. The Amish church hides the truth just to keep its name holy. In The Dark Side of the Amish: What You Don’t Know, Mary Byler, was raped by her own brother and members of the Amish community and she had to keep quiet about it for several years until she broke away from the community. “A public confession to pretty much any crime will be forgiven in Amish community” (Caroline, 2014), which would not be acceptable in the public’s eye or even the law’s eye. A punishment has to be given for criminals to learn their lesson. In addition, “drinking too much has the same punishment as raping a child”(Caroline, 2014). “For Mary, to imagine that her abusers would only get a "slap on the wrist" for their life-scarring actions she will never forget, was devastating”(Caroline, 2014). The Amish need to realize that their punishment is weak to the standards of the “English” and the law. Their ways of punishment are not enough to teach a lesson to those people so it doesn’t happen. The Amish only realize it as a small sin and try to quickly brush over it. The way of the church punishing needs to be greatly improved or even better, introduce law enforcement to the community to ensure safety.
Another example of the lack of having law enforcement is that the Amish had to come up with a mafia to keep them safe. In the TV series called The Amish Mafia, a few guys came up with the idea of protecting the Amish people from themselves and outsiders like the English. They took this role on and tried to be the law of the land. In some cases they would do whatever was needed to help the Amish fulfill their needs and avenge their losses. “The Amish Mafia is good and bad”(Evangelista, 2012) was the general consensus about the Amish mafia. The mafia would blow up cars, scare people away and even use guns to intimidate people to leave the Amish alone. It is true that this show has had problems with its factual evidence and the realistic view on the Amish mafia, but the Discovery Channel, where this TV show is played, is a reliable source a majority of the time. They did have problems in the past with their reliable evidence eon facts and such, but it seems to be spot on with this source. But either way, there should not be anyone trying to deal with the problem of the people other than the law enforcement. Law enforcement is given to support us an keep us safe. Not like a mafia where they go to extremes and act like guardians.
One last form of abuse that was encountered in the Amish community is physical abuse and this was the act of cutting beards of Amish men in which is a sign of manhood and a religious act when one is married. In The Guardian article was posted presenting us the information that beard cuttings did happen and it was brought to trial finally. “In the fall of 2011, 16 members (10 men and six women) of a breakaway Amish community in eastern Ohio executed five beard-cutting attacks on Amish people in other communities at night and by ambush over an eight-week period”(The Guardian, 2014). This is considered a hate crime and a sign of physical abuse and this could have been stopped before the outside world got involved: 8 weeks later. If law enforcement had been a part of the community they would have been able to stop it in the early process and saved beards and the manhood of multiple men. The beards for men showed that they were married and it was a sign that they believed in the Bible because it says in the Bible to not cut ones beard. Over the period of 8 weeks the word got out of the hate crime and that the church may have ignored it because the want to be recognized as holy. If the law was involved it is possible that it could have ended much sooner than it did. The reason the word got out to the public so late was because the innocent Amish victims didn’t want to rat out their own kind so they kept quiet until it got to extremes like where it happened to multiple people at once. This is an example that shows the differences in the Amish way of thinking and the “English” way of thinking. The “English” would report right away and try to place the criminals in jail and attempt to teach them a lesson. But in the Amish eyes there is only man and woman and because of that anything bad that happens never gets told due to the lack of criminal vs. victim. This is why the law got involved 8 weeks later and not immediately: the women and men that were attacked were afraid to speak out and had no right to talk over the higher ranking males. This is why the law should be enforced in Amish communities to ensure the criminals get caught faster and are brought to justice.
Another reason the Law must be enforced in an Amish community is because of overall safety. It can be dangerous for the Amish because of the buggy’s they travel in, and being so down to earth that some people may take advantage of them. One way the police can keep them safe is by keeping them safe from the outside world and from within the community also trying to keep the adolescents safe from the world and even themselves. As the The Darkside of the Amish says “In July of summer 2010, an Amish teen was caught with underage possession of alcohol, reckless endangerment, failure to stop at a stop sign, failure to yield at an emergency vehicle, and lastly, overdriving an animal” (2014) it is showing that the police need to be involved to keep all of this from spiraling out of control and escalating to bigger and worse crimes. As Aden Yoder stated “not everyone is always great and a lot gets covered up.” This shows that police need to be involved to uncover the problems and make the necessary adjustments in the community to keep people safe, as in the cutting of the beards, it could have been possible that accidental murder could have happened and that situation was all very unsafe. With the cops they could have helped stop it sooner so more people wouldn’t have to feel unsafe about the acts of the ex-Amish, Amish, or even the outside world.
Also the law can help the Amish feel safe by catching the little mistakes and crimes in Amish lives that could eventually escalate.

For example, in the “Dark side of the Amish,” they state that “even cases of murder have been covered up within Amish Community” (2014). This is considered wrong in the “English” world because if this gets out to a person or two, this could make them feel unsafe and not want to tell the church because of the thought of being shunned themselves. The thing with the Amish though is that they don’t see it as an extreme crime because they just know life as man and woman, superior vs. inferior and in this case they see it as no criminal vs. victim. The Amish may realize it is wrong, but not want to say anything to preserve the Amish name. This is why the law should be incorporated in the Amish system because simply, the Amish people are scared to talk sometimes and it may seem that the law can help them feel safe by taking care of the troubles and crimes that continue to

happen.
Furthermore, the Amish community needs the law enforcement in their communities is because like it has been stated, the church punishment is too weak and in some cases is just not enough to teach the individual a lesson.

In an article for the Commonwealth newspaper, Kraybill, the author, states that “[the Amish] refuse to hold public office for fear it may entangle them in litigation, which the church forbids; use of the law is considered a form of force that violates Jesus’ teachings on loving one’s enemies and praying for one’s persecutors” (2014). It is true that the Amish are considered the holiest of people, by the publics standards, and are better than average because they live and breathe the Bible. But even the holiest of people have their sins that they need to be punished for. The Amish may think that the church’s punishment is enough, but a “"slap on the wrist" for their life-scarring actions” from the church may not be enough especially for sexual abuse, drug abuse, hate-crimes, or even murder. Even an ex-Amish named as Aden Yoder repeatedly said that the church covers things up from the community and the public because it is more important to them to keep the Amish name sacred instead of catching and punishing criminals. The punishment from the church is just too weak. They want to protect the people and keep them close by making sinners only confess in public to get any crime to be forgiven in the community. That is wrong in the eyes of the public. We believe

in an “eye for and eye, tooth for a tooth” policy in which the Amish do not believe in. The Amish believe in forgiveness and forgetfulness. But how much longer can that go on until someone has to step up and say no, or until there is a mass killing. This is where the law can step in and make things right before it spirals out of control.