Stop Trafficking Newsletter

 

Click here to download the February 2021 newsletter

Human Trafficking and Women's Prisons

The number of women in state prisons has risen by 834% over the past 40 years. Traffickers are targeting these women, trapping many of them in an endless cycle of criminalization and exploitation.

 

Recruitment

 

Traffickers access data posted by government websites and local newspapers about anyone charged with a criminal offense. They then use this data to target potential victims. Pimps and sex traffickers routinely use fraudulent bail bondsmen to access potential victims in prison. These predators bail a woman out, pick her up as she leaves prison, and they now "own" her.

Inside prisons, commissary accounts are used to entrap victims. Women are financially supported through their incarceration by men on the outside, who then demand repayment when they are released.

Traffickers also pay recruiters in prison to scout out potential victims. Some women recruit other women with whom they are incarcerated on behalf of pimps on the outside. "Oh, you don't have a place to go when you get out? I have this friend..." The pimps specify how many women they must recruit and how much they will be paid for their services.

Tena Dellaca-Hendrick is a trafficker survivor...

 

...and a victim advocate at a sexual assault treatment center in Indiana. She reports that during exchanges between a pimp and his new recruit who is in prison, the women will feel indebted to their prospective new boss prior to release from prison.The trafficker will start putting money into the woman's commissary account as a loan [thus building a relationship]. "What they don't realize is that $10 comes at extremely high interest rate, so when you get out of prison you might have borrowed $100..., that $100 is now $10,000...due to the interest rate piped on the borrowing..."

The traffickers often compound the indebtedness with romance. Through this psychological manipulation, and because the woman comes to believe they are in love, a pimp can make his new prey more accepting of his brutality or the strict rules he imposes. The prevalence of abuse and instability in the personal histories of many inmates makes them particularly vulnerable to human traffickers who say they will give them what they want and need.

 

The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: the Girls Story

This report, published by The National Institute of Corrections, describes how girls, especially girls of color, who have been sexually and physically abused are criminalized. Girls who are victims of sex trafficking, girls that run away from abusive situations are imprisoned. Meanwhile, laws that criminalize the act of sex with minors are rarely enforced in the context of child sex trafficking. In many cases, child-sex buyers escape with little or no accountability, despite the traumatic effect of their acts on the victims.

The report includes potential solutions to help end the cycle of victimization to prison for girls.

The Role of Corrections Officers in Efforts to End Human Trafficking

   

Prisons are an untapped resource in efforts to eradicate human trafficking. Correctional officers are in daily contact with both perpetrators and victims of trafficking. Officers need to first educate themselves about human trafficking. In many cases, a victim of trafficking may initially present as a suspect in some type of crime. For example, a suspect arrested for prostitution may be a victim, forced into committing the crime; or an individual arrested on what appears to be an immigration violation may be a victim of labor trafficking.

The Trap

 

This 32-minute documentary investigates how prisons across the United States have become recruiting grounds for human traffickers, who are targeting incarcerated women and trafficking them out of correctional facilities and into pimp-controlled prostitution. 

Click here to watch