According to an article of FBI.gov, “Most of the women described their path into the sex trade as a boyfriend transforming into a pimp or a girlfriend becoming a prostitute. A man recognized the woman’s situation and gained access through affection, compassion, and a promise to care. He became a companion who listened, understood, and shared the desire for a better future.”

The Anaheim Police Department  used to set up stings to arrest prostituted women, not the pimps or buyers. The standard procedure was for undercover officers to pose as customers, obtain a solicitation, and arrest the prostitute. They repeated the process often to incarcerate as many women as possible.   The cycle would quickly repeat itself and the problems remained.

In 2010, however, the Anaheim Police Department dramatically changed its tactics. “The goal became rescuing women from their pimps and redirecting their lives, reducing prostitution one life at a time. This paradigm shift meant considering prostitutes as potential victims and identifying pimps as suspects. This role transition became the basis of a new approach where prostitution activity was viewed as potential human sex trafficking.” The department adopted new strategies to—

• assist women in escaping prostitution;
• help them realize their situations and the circumstances that got them there;
• provide services to assist with redirecting their lives in a positive direction; and
• seek cooperation in pursuing the pimps who trafficked them as prostitutes.

 

 

READ THE FULL ARTICLE ON FBI.GOV HERE