TV that Deserved Better: 'Sins of the Amish'

     On May 24, 2022, Peacock released 'Sins of the Amish', which earned rave reviews from critics. In the series, "Little is known about the secretive world of Plain communities beyond the image they present through their multimillion-dollar tourism industry. Despite their reputation as peaceful, gentle people, Amish congregations are fraught with horrific abuse that the outside world rarely hears about. A group of survivors takes a stand against century-long traditions to speak out against oppression in the hopes of effecting change for future generations. Despite teachings that the Amish should never go outside the church for help, some women are brave enough to take their abusers to court." Unfortunately, the series did not receive the accolades that it richly deserved. But what did the critics say?

   Fletcher Peters of The Daily Beast writes, "The new docuseries is a horrifying portrait of the pattern of dark behavior and victim silencing that has pervaded the Amish community for generations—and gone largely unnoticed."

Photo by Demure Storyteller on Unsplash

    Johnny Loftus of Decider notes, "Investigations into child sexual abuse in Amish communities have recently appeared in national news outlets like NPR and the Associated Press. But Sins of the Amish feels more intensely personal, given that the documentary series is centered on first-person testimony from abused individuals themselves. The women speak plainly to the camera about their experiences, often with an air of careful detachment, as if the violence they encountered has already been categorized and boxed away. But that doesn’t make it forgotten. There’s a raw, nervy energy to the way Mary manipulates her knitting needles during interviews – anything to keep her hands busy, her thoughts active elsewhere – and her box of Amish community artifacts is damning. She reaches for a kind of sex education manual designed for eleven-year-old girls, which seems to blame the victim and absolve any sexual attacker, in particular a male sibling. “He suddenly finds himself a victim of your carelessness and the lust of his own body,” Mary reads aloud. It’s harrowing stuff. Sins of the Amish is powerful on a personal level, it doesn’t always provide enough narrative detail. For example, how the apparent existence of psychiatric facilities exclusive to the Plain communities play into their traditionalist belief system isn’t explored, or how such places can remain unlicensed and unregistered. But it’s nevertheless a tantalizing facet of the doc, which shares with the Mormon-centered true crime drama Under the Banner of Heaven a sense of unfolding the shroud from a famously insular community." Adding, "STREAM IT. Sins of the Amish gives voice to formerly silenced ex-members of the Plain communities, whose collective story of chronic sexual abuse is compelling from a personal and true crime perspective."