LA’s Trafficking Task Force: 33 Arrests, 70 officers, 0 Accountability
On Tuesday, August 21 the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force demonstrated what happens when a lack of understanding of the best practices of trafficking and a commitment to wasting resources come together. In a multi-agency effort, roughly 70 law enforcement officers targeted two communities with predominantly Black and brown populations, Lynwood and Compton, to conduct a sting on the sex trade, resulting in 33 arrests for prostitution and solicitation charges. As a collective whose work straddles areas of public health and human rights, anti-trafficking and harm reduction, we decry these acts of violence from the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force. These stings not only harm the lives of those impacted, but increases the vulnerability of people in the sex trade beyond the 33 arrested.
The Harms of Stings
It is well-documented that increased policing and criminalization of those who trade sex leads to increases in violence, exploitation and transmission of HIV and STIs. To avoid arrest during heightened policing, sex workers will often move to more remote or isolated locations where physical and sexual violence become easier, and individuals are less able to rely on the safety of nearby peers or service providers. Increased policing also means shorter negotiation times — meaning negotiation for things like physical boundaries or condom use fall off the table. All of this also leads to a decreased screening and negotiation of prices and services with clients, meaning sex workers end up seeing more clients for less money. This economic instability means sex workers are less likely to turn clients away, including those who are intoxicated or have a history of assault, or may have to rely on third parties to find clients. When arrested, court fines and fees, loss of access to social services such as housing, immigration consequences, and family court complications are common, and create additional points of vulnerability which can be exploited.
In short, the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force is making those most vulnerable to exploitation more vulnerable more broadly while engaging in the abuse of arrest of potential victims of human trafficking.
What makes these things even more egregious is the reliance on moving just a few people into services after they have experienced this trauma, services which are increasingly being held as a carrot only after the stick of arrest and booking. In this most recent operation, ten of those arrested and booked were sent to two different service providers after screened by police; and these services are used as the justification for the LAPD’s violence.
Beyond the harms to sex workers and local communities, calls to stop arresting victims of trafficking have come from service providers, victims of trafficking, sex workers rights advocates, and even the former Ambassador on Human Trafficking. The use of “human trafficking operations” as an excuse for police violence and the trauma of arrest against victims cheapens the most thoughtful anti-trafficking efforts. Arrests are inherently forceful, violent acts and the impact of policing is to create a target population for violence and victimization. Arrests of someone being forced and exploited is simply another act of violence and force in a series of forceful, violent acts. Sting operations do not meaningfully address issues of exploitation, but instead pour financial resources into the destruction of communities and violation of survivors, and service providers and community groups alike should be outraged.
The Role of Services
This also begs the question — why are basic services, such as access to emergency shelter or a case manager who can navigate overly complicated state systems, only available after the abuse of arrest and only if identified as deserving by an often poorly trained officer? And what are the responsibilities of those services, often operating at the end of a long and troubling process upon which they have little input, to call out these systems and policies of abuse?
People of color and indigenous people, as well as people of queer and trans experience, face marginalization and a lack of resources and opportunities that is often addressed by sex work and other forms of informal economies. Increasingly, access to basic resources is becoming predicated on the abuse of arrest and the control of involvement in the prison and medical industrial complex. Funding for low-barrier services is difficult, especially for criminalized populations. While we acknowledge the importance of having services which meet people at every stage of encounter with the criminal legal system under the current paradigm, it is that much more important that those services advocate are vocal about the harm those systems are causing, and fight just as hard for resources to be made available before an arrest or booking; resources which could prevent any system involvement to begin with.
When stings on the sex trade occur, service providers are often put into the difficult position of being informed that policing operations will occur, regardless of their involvement. This forces providers into the difficult role of deciding whether to show up and offer services to those involved, or know that individuals will most likely receive nothing but a charge and booking. Organizations like those involved in this operation are forced to straddle a line between offering an option for harm reduction of criminal legal system and becoming complicit in the harm that tactics like this can cause.
While this is a challenging position to hold, it is also a unique opportunity for organizations who are valued by law enforcement to challenge the abuse of communities of color and people who trade sex in the privileged spaces they hold — spaces inaccessible to these exact communities.
The LA Regional Task force has flaws and perpetuation of abuse baked into its membership. The structure of the group is overwhelmingly law enforcement heavy. No groups which solely represent the communities targeted by these operations are listed. Groups which promote abuse of sex workers and policing of the sex trade, on the other hand, are listed as participants of the Task Force. Without accountability to the communities most impacted, and most vulnerable to exploitation, the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force is simply another actor creating violence and abuse against people trading sex, including those experiencing trafficking and exploitation and against their communities.
