Over-Policing Sex Trafficking: How U.S. Law Enforcement Should Reform Operations

The USC Gould International Human Rights Clinic will release Over-Policing Sex-Trafficking: How U.S. Law Enforcement Should Reform Operations, on Monday, November 15, 2021.

The report is one of the first comprehensive reports about U.S. anti-sex trafficking law enforcement operations, jointly coordinated at the federal, state and local levels, and often known as “raids”, “stings” or “sweeps”. They involve law enforcement working undercover or investigating private establishments to identify persons who are sex trafficked (referred to as survivors or victims), and perpetrators. The U.S. government has long used these operations as a primary means for addressing sex trafficking, presenting them as an effective anti-sex trafficking tool through compelling media releases and press conferences. Meanwhile, there is little public data about operations’ outcomes and funding, despite distressing claims that operations harm and retraumatize persons who are sex trafficked, while perpetuating systemic racism as well as discrimination against LGBTQ individuals and undocumented immigrants….Continue Reading Over-Policing Sex Trafficking: How U.S. Law Enforcement Should Reform Operations

EVENT – OVER-POLICING SEX TRAFFICKING: How U.S. Law Enforcement Should Reform Operations

Join a discussion with experts about one of the first comprehensive reports examining the efficacy of anti-sex trafficking law enforcement operations, commonly referred to as “raids,” “stings,” or “sweeps.” Authored by the University of Southern California Gould School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic, the report centers the voices and perspectives of persons who have been sex trafficked to ask:
1.Whether such operations meet the goals of the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act; and
2.Whether they should remain the primary anti-sex trafficking tool used by the U.S. government….Continue Reading EVENT – OVER-POLICING SEX TRAFFICKING: How U.S. Law Enforcement Should Reform Operations