Many local law enforcement agencies do not have enough manpower, resources or data to properly gauge the scope of sex trafficking crimes in their communities.
Those are some of the findings from a new study released by the Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety at Arizona State University. Included in the survey were 72 of the 100 largest police departments in the United States, five of which are in the Valley.
Professor Vincent Webb, one of the authors, said the difficulty with tracking these crimes is, in part, because federal agencies only started collecting this information in recent years. The study found that many local departments rely primarily on professional experience to determine whether trafficking is on the rise or not, not intelligence or data.
The estimates from the surveyed departments reveal the biggest uptick in trafficking is connected to online activity.
“Local police agencies, most of them are pretty ill-equipped to deal with cyber crime in general and specifically with any sex trafficking that’s involving the use of electronic media,” Webb said.
The vast majority of departments indicated sex trafficking was a problem. Of those, about 40 percent reported that street prostitution was declining.