We applaud Arizona's dogged law enforcement officers who spent time in the polygamous border town of Colorado City, gathering evidence against members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints. Such commitment is necessary if leaders and individuals in such polygamous groups are to be prosecuted for victimizing their members.

Arizona investigators have rightly focused not simply on the practice of polygamy, banned by the constitutions of both Utah and Arizona, but on the abhorrent and illegal practices of some polygamous groups.

Grand jury testimony of a young woman who was "spiritually married" at 16 to one of the indicted FLDS members is particularly disturbing. She described the ceremony, one of eight or 10 performed that day by Warren Jeffs, the fugitive FLDS president who is also wanted on charges related to the marriage, that made her the second wife of a man she had never met. Jeff's own 16-year-old daughter was among the child brides, who ranged in age from 15 to 17.

Polygamists argue that the Constitution protects their right to practice their religion as they choose. But there is no protected right to force underage girls into sexual relationships. There is no religious shield that protects men who treat women and children as their property, to do with as they wish.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has been criticized for taking a soft approach toward prosecuting polygamists. He has tried setting up education programs to help women and girls who want to leave the polygamous lifestyle and for young boys expelled from the groups.

Creating a social bridge must be part of any successful effort to help those who suffer in polygamous homes, but it won't work without also getting tough on their abusers.

We appreciate the difficulty of getting witnesses to testify against men and a patriarchy they have been taught to revere and to fear. But those who commit crimes within polygamy should not go unpunished.