Nevertheless, Dhanoa stated, the excessive quantity of arrests and recoveries can be a mirrored image of legislation enforcement businesses having the ability to faucet into further assets that aren’t obtainable year-round.
“This effort exhibits that once we’re all in a room collectively and have this chance to all work our assets in a single place and our methods, it’s a a lot faster course of,” Csiky stated. “It simply issues how a lot manpower is put into the trouble.”
Each Dhanoa and Csiky stated the operation’s give attention to recovering victims of trafficking was particularly vital. Dhanoa stated some comparable operations prior to now have targeted extra on arrests of traffickers and fewer on sufferer identification and get in touch with with potential survivors.
However whereas the operations can result in recoveries of trafficking victims, some intercourse work advocates say in addition they negatively have an effect on those that aren’t being trafficked.
Maxine Doogan, who describes herself as a “working prostitute of 30-plus years,” stated that when such operations are occurring, it places her and different intercourse employees in an “economically deprived place.”
“It’s actually arduous for individuals to show down alternatives to make cash, as a result of this time of yr is at all times historically very sluggish,” she informed KQED. Throughout such operations, she stated, “anyone that was new, I wouldn’t reply their name. I might be too scared.”
“I couldn’t threat having an arrest, after which having to dig myself out of that whereas I’m attempting to offer housing and meals for myself and my kids,” she stated.
Dhanoa acknowledged that an unintended consequence of those operations has typically been arresting “people who don’t determine as survivors.”
Lt. Josh Singleton, the anti-trafficking process pressure’s commander, stated Santa Clara County doesn’t criminalize intercourse work.
Nonetheless, he stated, the division treats industrial intercourse employees as “potential victims.”
“Our group at all times takes a victim-centered, trauma-informed strategy,” Singleton informed KQED. “It may be very difficult to differentiate the distinction between a industrial intercourse employee who’s working independently on their very own versus somebody who’s being trafficked by any individual else.”
In response to Singleton, the duty pressure’s 29 arrests had been for pimping, pandering, human trafficking of an grownup or human trafficking of a minor. An extra 36 industrial intercourse consumers had been cited or arrested for solicitation.
