Blowin’ Up chronicles harm reduction at the Queens Human Trafficking Intervention Court

“I hate court. I didn’t want to be at court. No one likes court. It’s boring. It’s terrible. It’s chaotic. And having to tell someone they have to do five sessions with me to get an adjournment and contemplation of dismissal, and then have to wait six months for that to happen – like, that’s crazy. But it’s the only possibility, so what are we supposed to do? Just not have the court and just let people get criminal records? And then what?”

Such was the frustrating bureaucracy that Eliza Hook, a former social worker at GEMS (Girls Educational & Mentoring Services), navigated on a daily basis for her sex worker clients at New York City’s Queens Human Intervention Trafficking Court. Headed by a female judge (the Honorable Toko Serita) and the first in the nation to emphasize harm reduction over punishment, it’s a reality Stephanie Wang-Breal captures both artistically and respectfully in Blowin’ Up, her fascinating, fly-on-the-wall portrait of this off-the-radar place where Hook served as a court advocate for close to a decade. So when I got the chance to chat via phone with the fierce film subject a few days before the doc’s theatrical premiere (April 5th in NYC, April 12th in LA), the first thing I wanted to know was whether there was a movement to reform the unjust system itself.

To find out, and read part two of my long and winding interview, visit Global Comment.