{"id":204,"date":"2011-04-24T13:21:47","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T18:21:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/?p=204"},"modified":"2012-06-25T19:31:55","modified_gmt":"2012-06-26T02:31:55","slug":"memo-data-from-fbis-innocence-lost-initiative-and-operation-cross-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/entry\/204","title":{"rendered":"Memo: Data from FBI’s Innocence Lost Initiative and Operation Cross Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

So I was reading up on FBI’s Innocence Lost Initiative<\/a> and “Operation Cross Country”–somewhat periodic nationwide sting operation targeting prostitution (well the goal is to target commercial sexual exploitation of minors, but a lot of adult prostitutes get caught up in it) in preparation for (you may have guessed it) my upcoming sine about the fraud that is the U.S. anti-trafficking movement. FBI does not publicly release all its data, so it’s hard to understand the full impact of these sting operations.<\/p>\n

Below, you will see information about each of these nationwide stings that I can gather form FBI’s own celebratory press releases. I put the data into a table for my own convenience, and I thought I’d share with my readers just in case someone is interested. Data correspond to results of Operation Cross Country I thru V, plus a precursor to Operation Cross Country (labeled “0”).<\/p>\n

\nSpotty Data from FBI’s Operation Cross Country sweeps<\/b>
\nSource: FBI press releases<\/small><\/p>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
 <\/th>\nDate<\/th>\nCity<\/th>\nRescues<\/th>\nArrests<\/th>\nRescues TD<\/th>\nConvictions TD<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
0<\/td>\n12\/16\/2005<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n30<\/td>\n19<\/td>\n <\/td>\n67<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\n6\/25\/2008<\/td>\n16<\/td>\n21<\/td>\n389<\/td>\n433<\/td>\n308<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\n10\/27\/2008<\/td>\n29<\/td>\n49<\/td>\n642 (73 pimps, 518 pros)<\/td>\n577<\/td>\n365<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\n2\/23\/2009<\/td>\n29<\/td>\n48<\/td>\n571<\/td>\n670<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\n10\/26\/2009<\/td>\n36<\/td>\n52<\/td>\n700 (60 pimps)<\/td>\n900<\/td>\n510<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\n11\/8\/2010<\/td>\n40<\/td>\n69<\/td>\n885 (99 pimps)<\/td>\n1200<\/td>\n625<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Date = Date the operation was announced in a press release. Typically, the stings take place during the 72 hours before the announcement.
\nCity = Number of cities in which stings took place.
\nRescues = Number of minors FBI claims to have “rescued.”
\nArrests = Number of arrests made. This may include adult prostitutes, clients, as well as pimps (FBI doesn’t fully disclose the breakdown).
\nRescues TD = Number of minors FBI claims to have “rescued” to date since Innocence Lost Initiative began.
\nConvictions TD = Number of convictions FBI claims have resulted from Innocence Lost Initiative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Some comments:<\/p>\n

1) If OCC II is any indication, the nationwide sweep affects adult prostitutes in far greater numbers compared to youth on the street, johns\/clients, or pimps (642 total minus 73 pimps and 518 pros leaves 51 arrests unaccounted, which I assume are johns).<\/p>\n

2) On average, OCC results in the “rescue” of one or two minors in each city where stings are conducted. Sure, that may be “one too many,” but it doesn’t strike me as an evidence for a shockingly large epidemic. Anti-trafficking groups would have us believe that there are hundreds of thousands of teenagers being exploited in the sex trade, but these stings either casts serious doubt in their claim, or FBI and local law enforcement officials are totally incompetent.<\/p>\n

3) I’m having difficulty believing that 73 pimps were arrested for trafficking 49 minors, or 60 pimps for 52 minors, or 99 pimps for 69 minors. Are they counting pimps who control adult prostitutes? Or are they labeling friends and family members of trafficking victims as “pimps” automatically–as the legal definition of pimping includes anyone who benefit from the earning of prostitution, even if they are not the traffickers? More disclosure would help me understand this data.<\/p>\n

4) In fact, more data overall would be helpful, for example: breakdown of arrests (youth\/adult, worker\/client\/pimp), and what happened to each group of people after their arrest. How many “pimps” are actually minors also? How many people are arrested on drug and other charges during the sweep–which often police officers do to coerce women to testify? How many of the convictions are for pimping and trafficking, compared to johns? (FBI boasts “these convictions have resulted in lengthy sentences, including multiple 25-year-to-life sentences”–the choice of the word “multiple” leads me to think that they probably have perhaps two or three such victories…)<\/p>\n

Does anyone know if it’s possible to obtain more detailed data, including all the above plus the breakdown of different cities? Is there any researcher (i.e. someone who has more professional credibility than I do) interested in submitting a FBI records request<\/a> (and share the result with me)? Now’s the time to take advantage of your class and social status privilege!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I was reading up on FBI’s Innocence Lost Initiative and “Operation Cross Country”–somewhat periodic nationwide sting operation targeting prostitution (well the goal is to target commercial sexual exploitation of minors, but a lot of adult prostitutes get caught up in it) in preparation for (you may have guessed it) my upcoming sine about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-code","category-sex-trade"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eminism.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}