Sexual panic permeated the 1980s, dictating who was criminalized and who got locked up, and for what behaviors. Poking around in newspaper databases in those pre-Google days, I came across the headline “Two Men Charged in Kidnapping Plot” from 1989, a cryptic story buried in the back pages of The New York Times about two undercover cops who had offered to provide two other men with a child to star in a homemade snuff film. One of those other two men was Daniel DePew. It might be said that entrapment cases are a Rorschach test of a society’s obsessions and fears at any given time. Who and what are we most afraid of? How can we lock them up for life and convince ourselves they deserve it? Let the DePew case offer some answers.
Source : The Fatal Ensnaring of Dan DePew
