The Amish are known for their devoutly religious lives, but they still have problems.
From drinking, to pollution, to sexual abuse — here is some of what happens when no one
is looking.
The idea of someone being arrested for a DUI while driving a buggy might seem silly, but
it's no laughing matter.
It can be deadly.
According to The Seattle Times, buggies are a massive traffic hazard.
Between 2011 and 2015, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recorded 84
deaths occurring in 71 separate crashes, and they add there's likely more that weren't
reported.
When crashes do occur, it's grim.
Oswegatchie, New York town supervisor Alfred Nichols told The Seattle Times,
"You hit one of these buggies and they're like kindling wood — they just kind of explode
— and you almost always have to put the horse down.
They get hit from behind, and the person in the buggy flies through the air because they
don't wear seat belts."
Such crashes are far too frequent.
"The Amish community is in mourning after a local family lost three children yesterday
after a fatal vehicle buggy crash."
In 2019, an Amish man in Kentucky was arrested on 10 felony counts after side-swiping another
vehicle and crashing his buggy.
According to The Independent, he had been drinking, and a group of children were with
him.
In 2020, according to Chautauqua Today, an 18-year-old New York man had been drinking
when he ran a stop sign with his horse-and-buggy in New York, flipping the buggy, and injuring
the horse.
Driving while drinking — no matter the vehicle — is always a serious offense.
That's not the only issue on the roads of Amish country.
A quick search of news stories reveals a disturbing history: Some Amish at times mistreat animals.
Specifically, they mishandle the horses they use for transportation.
In 2016, The Washington Post reported that police had charged a Pennsylvania Amish man
with two counts of cruelty to animals.
They were called to the scene by passers-by who saw a single horse being overburdened
with a wagon of watermelons.
Unable to pull it, the horse collapsed and then was hit by its owner.
That's not the only instance of outside law enforcement getting involved: in 2011, officers
were called to a Pennsylvania Costco parking lot, where two Amish people had left horses
tied.
Both were swaying, suffering from heat exhaustion after standing in the sun on the 99-degree
day.
Then, there's the fate of most of the horses the Amish have used: the slaughterhouse.
The site 83 degrees says that while many Amish will pay good money for horses deemed ready
for use, those same horses are worked so hard they usually outlive their usefulness by the
time they're in their teens.
They're taken to auction, traded for a newer, younger model, then often bought by kill buyers
for a few hundred dollars.
Horse rescues have been established to try to change that way of thinking and save horses
destined to be sold per pound to slaughterhouses.
In 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency took a long, hard look at Amish farms in Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania.
They found that 85 percent of Amish farms had major health violations, including improper
fencing that would normally keep cows from adding their poop to local waterways, and
high concentrations of E. coli in water sources.
And this wasn't just a problem contained to their farms — the whole investigation was
kick-started by reports of pollution flooding into the Chesapeake Bay from three main areas,
causing major algae blooms and ultimately, dead zones in the waterways, where there was
so little oxygen in the water that it could no longer support life.
The Amish community was one of three pollution hot spots identified by the EPA, and here's
the thing: even though the agency was going to start holding farmers accountable for following
the laws when it came to things like controlling sediment and keeping livestock out of the
water, not everyone will comply.
While some have decided to accept the laws — and the state funding set aside for improvements
— others believe keeping to themselves and the old ways is more important.
And they have a long way to go: they are, after all, still using old-school farming
methods that destroy the soil, promote erosion, and ultimately pollute the areas around them.
In 2020, Cosmopolitan ran a piece on the findings of their year-long investigation into the
Amish community, during which they found women who were willing to speak out about the horrible
treatment they suffered behind the closed doors of their community.
Cosmopolitan reported that many girls in the Amish community were repeatedly attacked by
members of the community.
Sometimes, victims felt they couldn't speak up about these experiences because nobody
else would vouch for their experience.
When her time among the Amish ended, reporter Sarah McClure of Type Investigations had found
almost three dozen women who were willing to talk about the assaults they dubbed an
open secret that spanned generations.
"I was molested quite a bit as a child by various people."
In just the past two decades, she confirmed 52 cases in Amish communities across seven
different states, and she went on to blame what she called a perfect storm of factors.
For starters, there's the fact the Amish are living in isolated, patriarchal communities
that limit their social awareness, and they're folded into a community that preaches forgiveness
and obedience.
"I didn't have the words or knowledge about how to identify that."
But that's not all.
Cosmopolitan's investigation found there was a very simple reason that it had remained
a secret for so long.
A woman who went by Esther told the magazine,
"We're told that it's not Christlike to report.
It's so ingrained.
There are so many people who go to church and just endure."
Sarah McClure said that was the case with almost every Amish victim she interviewed.
Family and church leaders alike warned them not to say anything about their experiences,
as they would face ridicule, victim-shaming, and even ex-communication from the church.
Linda Crockett, the founder and director of Safe Communities, says that's been very slowly
changing.
More Amish women are coming forward, even if it means leaving the church and communities
they grew up in.
Crockett says,
"They hear about each other — not on Twitter or Facebook, but there's a strong communication
system within these communities.
They draw courage and strength from each other."
Sarah McClure found that when it comes to crimes among the Amish, victims were in part
discouraged because the punishment rarely fits the crime.
The punishment for one disgraced father?
Six weeks of shunning, in which he was socially ostracized and forced to eat meals separately
from the community, and a church confession.
Not long after, things were back to how it had been before.
Outside law enforcement did try to intervene, but according to their notes, things had been,
quote, "dealt with in the church."
The community urged the victim not to speak about the topic again, but authorities did
return.
It actually didn't get much better.
The man ended up in court, but Pennsylvania district attorney Craig Stedman says there's
almost always a problem, saying,
"We've had cases where there'll be 50 Amish people standing up for the offender and no
one speaks for the victim."
With overwhelming community support, the man only got probation.
He returned home to his family and continued his criminal behavior, undeterred by the outcome.
When investigator Sarah McClure started looking into why so many in the Amish community keep
quiet about allegations, she uncovered something else horrifying: sometimes, it meant victims
were sent away.
McClure spoke with a woman called Lizzie, who said that when she spoke out, she was
bullied for what the community claimed was a consensual affair.
She recalled,
"They didn't ask me how I felt or my side of the story."
Instead, she was labeled as having mental health problems.
Lizzie was then sent to a so-called chiropractic clinic, where she was told to, quote, "work
through [her] emotional stuff."
McClure found that her account of a mysterious facility — always staffed by other Amish
or Mennonites — wasn't the only one.
Others told similar stories, and some say they were forced to take a cocktail of drugs
that left them like zombies.
Lizzie said she knew of 30 other women who had been similarly treated, and when Esther
went, she was forced to take so-called sleep medication, but it wasn't for sleep: it was
olanzapine, an antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia.
Esther started having hallucinations but stayed on the drug for weeks, as she knew it was
the only way to get out.
Esther and Lizzie have both since left the church.
While some claim that the Amish own about 20 percent of America's puppy mills, Snopes
says that's not entirely true, but just for one reason: it's impossible to tell just how
many they run.
"Can I take a look at it?"
"Uhhh, not really, our— We don't usually let very many people look at it."
The Humane Society of the United States estimates there are around 10,000 puppy mills in the
country, and yes, many have been linked to the Amish community.
In 2017, for example, the SPCA seized 27 dogs from a Lancaster County breeder, treated those
that were in desperate need of medical attention, and rehomed them — then they pressed charges
against the breeder.
Live Wire Lancaster reported that in 2009, Lancaster County had been declared the "Puppy
Mill capital of the US," a title they directly linked to their large Amish population.
They estimated there were around 600 unlicensed breeding facilities operated out of Lancaster
County sheds and barns, and wrote,
"Not only do the Amish operate these puppy-mills, they ensure the public does not hear rumblings
inside by stressing the importance of maintaining secrecy."
"Is that true?
Do you— do you sell from puppy mills?"
"That is not true.
It's the furthest thing from the truth."
Stopping them has proven difficult, says Bill Smith of Main Line Animal Rescue. Smith told
Live Wire Lancaster,
"People are deceived.
[...] They walk away with a dog and don't realize that there are 500 dogs in a barn
and are suffering horribly."
In 2005, 60 Minutes took a close look at a widespread problem in Amish communities: genetic
disease.
In some instances, they were suffering from diseases so rare they didn't even have names.
In other instances, the Amish community contained almost a third of all global cases.
They traced it back to something called the founder effect.
The majority of Amish trace their lineage back to the same group of German-Swiss immigrants
who settled in the US in the 1700s, and there were only a few hundred members of that group.
Today, prolonged intermarriages are causing such a widespread problem that some communities
have opted to build clinics just to care for their special needs children.
In 2020, Health Europa reported the results of a shocking study done by the University
of Exeter.
They found 150 genetic disorders in Amish communities, and estimated as much as 80 percent
of all Amish have a genetic disorder.
Even more surprising were the 25 disorders that were discovered there — they're known
nowhere else in the world.
Diseases are serious, too: They're things like the Maple syrup urine disease, which
causes the body to turn protein into a poison that causes brain damage, and Cohen syndrome,
which causes a range of symptoms including weak muscle tone that keeps some sufferers
from even being able to support the weight of their own body.
In 2018, People reported on something that seemed incredibly weird: Sabrina Burkholder
from the reality show Breaking Amish had almost died after a heroin overdose.
The incident was a relapse: she had been clean for a year when her friend gave her heroin
for her birthday, and it was the last thing she remembered.
She survived after a dose of Narcan, and she's not alone in her problems.
In 2016, ABC News had reported that opioid addiction — including heroin — was becoming
an increasing problem in the Amish communities of Indiana, even quoting a community elder
as saying,
"It's just slowly creeping in here."
And it had been for a long time.
In 1998, the Associated Press was reporting on something even more surprising: Two Amish
men had been arrested for their part in a cocaine ring.
They had been buying from the members of a motorcycle gang and selling to their Lancaster
County, Pennsylvania community.
Surprising?
Maybe, but Elizabethtown College sociologist Donald Kraybill has a different perspective.
He told The Atlantic,
"They're just like us.
They've got some problems, too."
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