64 pages • 2 hours read
Lisa ScottolineWhat Happened to the Bennetts
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Social Context: Witness Protection Program
The United States Federal Witness Protection Program, also known as WITSEC, began in the 1960s following John F. Kennedy’s campaign against organized crime. Kennedy’s approach to policing organized crime was based on taking down whole organizations using informants. The program became formalized in 1970 as part of the Organized Crime Control Act and today is run by the US Marshals services. As of 2020, the program had protected over 19,000 witnesses and family members.
When an individual enters the program, they cease to exist under their old names. For that reason, such witnesses are placed in vulnerable positions, allowing government officials to prioritize the case over their wellbeing. Because most of the witnesses have criminal records, there has also been a high rate of perjury. That said, the Witness Protection Program boasts a long list of indictments and a better recidivism rate than prisons.
As Scottoline points out in What Happened to the Bennetts, the Bennett family are atypical candidates. Because they are law-abiding, the Bennetts make for more trustworthy witnesses. They are also involved in their community and cared for by friends and family to greater extents than most individuals with criminal records. This latter point becomes more complicated by the rise of social media, which plays out in the novel when Lucinda’s friends and online amateur detectives begin their investigations. The Bennetts never actually enter the program. The house in Delaware is an FBI safehouse used before transferring candidates to the US Marshals.
Political Context: Guantanamo Bay
In 2002, President George W. Bush established the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. It is a military prison originally reserved for detainees related to the War on Terror in the wake of 9/11. Since opening, roughly 780 people have been detained in the prison and, as of 2023, the prison remains active.
In 2004, multiple former detainees began accusing the US military of engaging in inhumane interrogation techniques, including physical torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging, and sleep deprivation. At the same time, it was discovered that many of the detainees were arrested not based on evidence but through a bounty program. The US paid other countries for suspects of terrorism, and these countries were accused of delivering innocent men. The Red Cross inspected the facilities, corroborating many of these charges, and their report was leaked to the New York Times.
Inspired by these events, Scottoline invents the character Michael Ricks, the son of a senator, who served as one of the interrogators in 2004. Ricks tortured the fictional detainee Rohan Doha, an innocent goat herder, by brutalizing his knees leading to Doha’s death by a blood clot. Ricks originally clears his name thanks to political connections. Meanwhile, Jason was chosen to go to Guantanamo due to his reputation for objectivity as a court reporter. In Cuba, he and other court reporters transcribed interviews with the detainees as part of ongoing hearings related to the torture accusations.
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By Lisa Scottoline
