One thing really bothers me about this. If this had been going on for several years, I think of all the abused children over all those years. Why in the world were these crimes not acted upon several years ago, when it first came to light, to prevent all these additional children from being violated and abused? I understand the need to make your case, but several years? While the authorites waiting to make their case, more and more children were being abused.
Dang, you just asked the second question which has turned in to flame wars on these threads.
I will avoid the various answers that trigger the fighting (because I am not certain as to the validity or invalidity of those answers) and instead point out that a big problem is that the cult members are very isolated, particularly the women. There have been women who left the FLDS and told their stories. In some cases they were young and, in a few instances, their “husbands” were prosecuted. Additionally the “prophet” is in jail.
But for charges to be filed there essentially has to be a complaint and there are few people who actually have the information necessary to file the complaints. In most cases all there was was hearsay (from a legal standpoint). It’s not like these “marriages” are filed with the courts.
That said, there is no excuse for the fact that the officials in the welfare departments in Utah and Arizona did not both deal with the welfare fraud and report the obvious cases of child abuse.