Some 558 victims (419 children and 139 mothers) are in custody in Eldorado, Texas. Now people debate who – their religion or the state – has victimized them.

The local authorities raided the “Yearnings of Zion Ranch” last Thursday night, responding to phone calls from a 16-year-old girl who said her husband had “beat and hurt” her.

The ranch is a 1,700 acre fenced-in compound started by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a group that broke from the Latter Day Saints when it renounced polygamy in 1890. Warren Jeffs, the FLDS leader, is in the Utah State Prison serving a sentence of 10 years to life for two counts of rape as an accomplice.

Officials still haven’t found the girl who made the call, but since it’s illegal for Texas girls to marry under age 16, officials are now investigating young marriage and child abuse in the community. Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for Texas’ Child Protection Division, says that they are searching for cases of abuse or evidence that the isolated environment of the ranch was detrimental to the children.

Most don’t question the dysfunction of polygamy. (John Llewellyn, retired law enforcement officer and former polygamist, told Mother Jones polygamy is “a barbaric custom.”) The Eldorado case, however, does highlight an old question in regards to polygamy: Does the state have the right to interfere in the religious practice of this community? And if criminal action is suspected, what is appropriate action?

Scott Henson writes, “There’s a big difference between investigating an individual, anonymous complaint from a single teenager, and forcibly taking 419 children away from their homes based on guilt by association.”

In 1953 a raid on a FLDS community in Short Creek, Arizona resulted in the custody of 263 children, 86 women, and 39 men. Some 150 of the children were put into foster care, some never returned to their families. Overall the controversial raid did not effectively fight crime (23 men were placed on probation for one year), but did effectively separate families and increase public sympathy for the Short Creek victims.

UPDATE: Further details about the police raid of the temple were released today. After refusing to assist the police gain access to the temple, 57 FLDS men encircled the building while a SWAT team broke down the doors. Inside investigators found shredded documents and and several disheveled beds on the third floor, supposedly used by members to have sex with underaged girls. No criminal charges have been filed yet.