Milwaukee Ranks High In Human Trafficking
Sex trafficking victims and numbers purchasing sex is "mind-blowing." Special report, first in a series.
‘You have to decide’
On a weekday early in the morning before the day shift starts, police officers wait patiently in line to talk to detective Dawn Jones of the MPD Sensitive Crimes Division after a special in-service training they just received about human trafficking.
“This could be your daughter,” Sgt. Theresa Janick said. When officers hear that the victims of human trafficking most often enter the sex trade as teenage girls, it gives them a new perspective on the issue. She added that she has never seen officers wait in line to speak with the instructor after other in-service trainings.
Jones said she has made it her mission to educate police officers on how to identify trafficking through extensive training in the department. She noted that instances of force, fraud or coercion or the exploitation of youth can be challenging to detect. “If you don’t have the trained eye out there, you’re going to miss that identification.”
“Street operations do lead us to trafficking, but so do any calls,” Janick said, explaining why it is important for officers in every unit to be aware of warning signs. She added that without knowing what to look for, officers can unintentionally ignore “treasure troves of evidence.”
Since 2007, Jones has trained more than 3,000 police officers in Wisconsin on human trafficking. Her objective is to have “officers as proficient in human trafficking as domestic violence.”
Both Jones and Janick said that, like domestic violence, law enforcement officers didn’t originally see human trafficking as a major problem that required their involvement.
As Jones goes through the stacks and stacks of files atop her desk, she listens to church music to keep her focused on why she continues to do this difficult work. In the two years prior to starting her job, Jones said that there were no human trafficking cases opened in Milwaukee. Within her first week, she opened several cases. The number fluctuates, but about 150 are now open. Jones said that beginning to investigate them was like opening Pandora’s Box.
Jones said that some cases can require up to 30 separate search warrants and can take weeks to investigate properly because the evidence is often unconventional, underground and spread out. Conducting undercover trafficking operations is taxing on both time and manpower, occupying up to eight officers at a time, Janick added. Only three people work full time in the Sensitive Crimes Division, which handles the cases.
Law enforcement officials and advocates say that while many trafficking cases involve the victim, the john and the pimp, most investigations focus primarily on the victims and the trafficker but not the johns.
“You have to decide, do we go after the johns or do we save more juveniles?” Jones explained, adding, “We have so many child victims. I’d have to duplicate myself to be able to do all that work.”
She said that the division decides when and where to conduct sting operations and investigations depending on where juvenile victims are identified or suspected. Multiple operations are conducted some weeks, and none other weeks.
“If we suspect trafficking victims, we will do what we can to rescue them” and offer them services, Jones said. Agencies participating in the Human Trafficking Task Force of Greater Milwaukee work to provide a continuum of care for victims.
Jones said that her partnership with Janick and District 3 makes the operations more effective. Police districts conduct sting operations targeting those who purchase sex separately from human trafficking investigations, which focus on rescuing victims. The stings that target sex buyers occur from several times a month to once every few months depending on the district, according to Jones.
On the prosecution side, it is not feasible to thoroughly investigate johns suspected of purchasing sex from trafficking victims, even when they are arrested, Ladwig said. “If we had a lot more resources in a perfect world, every case would be looked at from top to bottom to search for any instances of trafficking,” he said.
Carter said she has seen similar resourcing challenges in Minneapolis and in other places. “Law enforcement just doesn’t have the money (to fund anti-demand efforts), but they need to find it,” said Carter, of Breaking Free. “Until they do, it won’t stop.”
Other cities have found resources and support for demand-focused initiatives through organizations such as Cities Empowered Against Sexual Exploitation (CEASE Network), a Boston-based organization that provides grants and facilitates collaboration among cities working to target sex buyers.
It is more difficult to apprehend and prosecute those who purchase sex from a minor than those who purchase from adults on the street, Jones pointed out.
“It’s hard to get the john red-handed with the juvenile,” she said. Sting street operations to catch johns can only be conducted with an undercover officer who is of age and acting on her own volition. As a result, these types of stings cannot be used to apprehend perpetrators for soliciting a child for prostitution or for any human-trafficking related charges.
Even if someone is found to have purchased sex from a juvenile victim in the course of an investigation, Jones said that it is often challenging to prosecute because it can be traumatizing or scary for the young victim to testify in court.
Nevertheless, Jones said anyone who purchases sex from minors should be held accountable. “Anyone who obtains a child for prostitution is a trafficker,” she said. “People think and say, he’s just a john. No, he’s a trafficker.”
A new approach
In an approach new to Milwaukee, Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Davis has charged both the trafficker and the john in a recent case involving a minor.
Martin Rice, a 73-year-old white man from Granville, has been charged with two felonies after purchasing sex from an underage victim: soliciting a child for prostitution and second-degree sexual assault of a child. He could face up to 40 years in prison and up to $100,000 in fines if convicted.
Davis also filed multiple felony charges against Mandrell Blain and Mario Newburn, two men who allegedly trafficked the minor in the same case.
“In eight years, this is the first time I’ve seen a district attorney charge a john along with the traffickers,” Jones said. “She (Davis) definitely wants to attack all sides of the problem.” Jones added that she hopes this is the beginning of a trend.
In Minneapolis, charging johns for soliciting a child for prostitution, a felony, is already normal. The police department is conducting demand-focused stings as part of an effort called Operation Guardian Angel. The operations specifically target those soliciting sex from minors through fake online advertisements selling sex with an underage girl. Police officers set up “dates” with people who respond to the advertisements, and then arrest them when they show up at the designated location, usually a hotel.
From 2010 to 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, the number of people charged under the statute that prohibits soliciting a child for prostitution nearly doubled, from 58 to 102.
Minneapolis authorities said that 2015 will be a “banner year” for enforcement of the statute. In September alone, 21 people were charged as a result of the sting operations.
Carter, of Breaking Free, said anti-demand efforts are a lot of work, “but we need it to be a continuous procedure for it to be effective.”
This added attention was focused on those who purchase sex in Minnesota after Safe Harbor laws were passed in 2011, which decriminalize youth involved in the sex trade and draw a stronger connection between child sexual exploitation and trafficking. Among other things, the laws increase penalties against sex abusers and purchasers.
In May, a safe harbor bill was introduced in the Wisconsin legislature.
