Revealed: how US sex traffickers recruit jailed women for prostitution

[Judi Lynn]

Guardian investigation finds incarcerated women are groomed by pimps and forced into sex work once released

Annie Kelly and Mei-Ling McNamara

Fri 29 Jun 2018 02.00 EDT

Women in prisons across the US are being recruited by sex traffickers who force them into prostitution on their release.

A Guardian investigation has found that traffickers are using government websites to obtain personal information including mugshots, release dates and charge sheets to identify potential victims while they are still behind bars.

Pimps also use inmates in prisons and jails countrywide to befriend incarcerated women who, on their release, are trafficked into the $9.5bn (£7.2bn) US commercial sex industry.

The investigation also found cases of the bail bond system being used in sex trafficking operations in at least five different states. Pimps and sex buyers are locating incarcerated women awaiting a court date by using personal data such as mugshots and bail bonds posted online, or through corrupt bondsmen.

More:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/jun/29/revealed-how-us-sex-traffickers-recruit-jailed-women-for-prostitution-the-trap

[Leghorn21]

1. More from link:

Once they have identified a potential target inside a prison or jail, traffickers will try to establish a relationship by using letters, phone calls and promises of money and housing when the victim is released. Prison bank accounts are also used to send money to women, establishing a debt that is used to coerce them into prostitution on their release.

“When I was in prison [in Ohio] I had pimps I knew from the streets, and men I had never met, writing to me to try and convince me to go home with them,” said Amy Williams*, who was incarcerated in state prisons and county jails in Ohio over a 15-year period.

“Some of us knew what we were going back into but didn’t feel we had any other choice, as they’d be waiting for us anyway. Other girls I knew had no idea that they would be put on the streets by this person.”

Pimp-controlled prostitution is now recognised as one of the most brutal and pervasive forms of human trafficking in the US. Trafficking is defined under US federal and international law as when a person is induced to perform labour or a commercial sex act through force, fraud or coercion.