Law enforcement, non-profits aim to deter sex trafficking during Super Bowl week - LA Daily News
As the Super Bowl returns to the Los Angeles area for the first time in 29 years, law enforcement and non-profits are spreading awareness and combating what they call an increase in sex traffickers to the region. Officials say a key goal is to rescue victims, particularly juveniles.
While the Super Bowl in particular is not the exact reason for the reported increases, large events in general tend to be a breeding ground for the crime. They include award ceremonies, political conventions and other large sporting events, said FBI special agent Ron Schloegel at a Jan. 20 FBI webinar. Sex trafficking, according to the FBI, is individuals being compelled by force, fraud or coercion to engage in commercial sex acts.
“A lot of people take this opportunity to have a good time, spend some money and that is unfortunately at the expense of people in coerced sex work,” Schloegel said.
At the 2021 Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla., 75 arrests were made in an anti-human trafficking operation, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office said. Of the arrests, three people were charged with human trafficking-related charges.
Kevin Malone, former general manager for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Montreal Expos and now president and co-founder of the Las Vegas based U.S. Institute Against Human Trafficking, is collaborating with non-profits for outreach and awareness campaigns to deter human trafficking tied to the Super Bowl.
These include a combination of technology-driven campaigns, informing local businesses and hotels near SoFi Stadium in Inglewood and elsewhere; and spreading awareness to the general public, Malone said.
“We’re not just doing this around this event, we plan to have a blueprint for all major events around Los Angeles,” Malone said. “This is being created with a long-lasting impact. We’re not going to stop on Monday after the Super Bowl.”
Arrests and rescues
Anti-trafficking operations are not limited to high-profile events. In 2021, the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force made 220 arrests, with 17 of them related to human trafficking or pimping, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy Lt. Christopher Sciacca, who leads the task force. The task force made 26 rescues, 24 children and two adults, Sciacca said.
“Our main focus is rescuing children,” Sciacca said.
The Sheriff’s Department has been preparing its Super Bowl anti-trafficking efforts for months, Sciacca said. The department has met with law enforcement agencies from previous Super Bowls and has devised a number of “pre-planned” operations as well as a response team. Other agencies collaborating with Inglewood police and involved in anti-trafficking operations include the Los Angeles Police Department, the state Department of Justice and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva on Feb. 1 said that 20 LASD deputies would assist members of the Department of Child and Family Services during the Super Bowl. The operation’s focus will be on rescuing and providing services for victims, he said.
Targeting of sex workers
Amid law enforcement publicity about trafficking, local sex work advocates have disputed and decried many of the anti-trafficking campaigns and operations as excuses to arrest willing sex workers. Soma Snakeoil, a sex worker of 18 years, said that many of these campaigns and operations are built upon “myths.”
“This is a myth that’s been debunked over and over again and continues to be propagated,” Snakeoil said. “Part of it was based in seeing more sex worker ads seen at sporting events, but there’s more advertising in general (around the Super Bowl).”
Snakeoil is the executive director and co-founder of The Sidewalk Project, a Los Angeles-based non-profit that works in harm reduction with the homeless, with a specialty in drug users and sex workers. She said that sex workers come from a variety of backgrounds, including those who do it by choice, for survival and to provide for their families — as well as those who have been exploited.
“The thing that’s important here as well is that you don’t get people out of an exploitative situation by putting handcuffs on them and traumatizing them,” Snakeoil said.
Sciacca acknowledged that sex workers are encountered in trafficking operations, but they’re not the Sheriff’s Department’s focus.
“We truly don’t target the sex workers,” Sciacca said. “Our main focus is rescuing the juveniles.”
Snakeoil said that it’s “very rare” for her organization to come across exploited children on the street.
“I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but the hysteria around it is really hyped,” she said.
Five felony charges
A November 2021 study by USC’s Gould School of Law reported 180 arrests were made in Los Angeles County in 2020 during the annual statewide, week-long Operation Reclaim and Rebuild that aims to combat trafficking. Of the arrests, mainly by Los Angeles police and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, 96 were commercial sex workers, 60 were sex solicitors, or “Johns,” eight were pimps and 16 were unclassified, the study reported.
In the same year, six juveniles and 16 adult victims were rescued, totaling 22 rescues, the most in Los Angeles County since the operation’s inception in 2017, according to the study.
Of the arrests in 2020, only three resulted in felony charges related to human trafficking, pimping or pandering along with two felony charges related to child sex crimes, the study reported. 156 misdemeanor charges related to prostitution, loitering or escorting were filed as a result of the operation, the study showed.
“We were unable to determine the number of traffickers arrested as a result of the (Operation Reclaim and Rebuild) operations because traffickers were not documented as their own category; rather, they were included in the category of “Pimp/pandering/supervising,” the study said.
The USC researchers found the lack of public data on the number of trafficking prosecutions resulting from trafficking operations makes it “nearly impossible to evaluate their effectiveness,” while such operations often traumatize victims. Survivors told the researchers about police yelling and screaming at them, calling them names such as “bitch,” “disgusting” and a “disease.”
“Anti-sex trafficking operations identify few victims or traffickers and instead result in the arrests of many victims and sex workers — a disproportionate number of whom are people of color, particularly Black women and minors,” the study found, though the researchers acknowledged “there are many law enforcement officers who are sincerely motivated to address sex trafficking and better serve victims.
In an effort to avoid victimizing potential victims, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office does not regularly file misdemeanor charges related to prostitution or solicitation, said Alex Bastian, special advisor to District Attorney George Gascón. However, the office has an exception to file charges for repeat offenders, Bastian said.
“There’s an exception we look at for repeat offenses in a 24-month period,” Bastian said. “We do not want to be engaging in victimizing victims again. We want to utilize a prevention outlook on these cases.”
Sciacca said that a sex worker and their “John” may be arrested or cited “depending on the circumstances.”
Helping victims on the street
Los Angeles native Oree Freeman, a victim of sex trafficking from age 11 to 15 and now an advocate for prevention and recovery, said she was hitting the streets this week for victim outreach.
“I plan on going out to some of the survivors and let them know there’s other options,” Freeman said. “It’s about showing up. The brainwashing is way different out here.”
Freeman credits programs offered to her when she was in Juvenile Hall at age 15 as helping her escape her traffickers for good.
“(When you’re being trafficked), you feel like everything is your fault, maybe I did this to myself and maybe this is what I deserved,” Freeman said. “You don’t just learn that what’s happening to you is wrong right away. It can take years to even realize.”
Freeman also disagreed that voluntary sex workers were being targeted in these campaigns and operations. Her belief from experience was that at least half of sex workers weren’t doing the work for themselves, she said.
“(That claim is) going against what we’re trying to fight for,” Freeman said.
Snakeoil said that her organization has already observed an increase in police presence “on the stroll” locally. She said that she would rather see police go after people who are “exploiting people at gunpoint and at knife point,” but that just isn’t the reality of what she’s seeing on the street.
“We know people are trafficked sometimes and exploited; we work with some of the groups who work with survivors,” Snakeoil said. “We don’t have to fight with each other.
“I know there’s different perspectives, but the idea is to really uplift folks as much as possible.”
Human trafficking victims, or anyone with information on trafficking, can call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) at 1-888-373-7888 or text 233733. Tips can also be submitted to the NHTRC website.
source: https://www.dailynews.com/2022/02/08/law-enforcement-non-profits-aim-to-deter-sex-trafficking-during-super-bowl-week/
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