The Internet makes it easier for those in the sex trade to hide their identities and harder for investigators to track them down. The technology is also making it easier for minors to be ensnared in the business. So the goal of investigators’ prostitution enforcement efforts is rescuing minors from human trafficking. (Liz Martin illustration/The Gazette)
Phone call after phone call, text message after text message, “john” after john responded to the advertisements.
Men and women from Iowa City to Milwaukee agreed to encounters with undercover police officers that landed them behind bars in the Johnson County Jail. The elaborate prostitution sting in Coralville last week that netted 16 people on prostitution charges and one woman on a charge of human trafficking took a lot of time, expertise and manpower to execute.
The investigation required an amalgam of resources, in part because much of today’s prostitution and human trafficking business operates behind the veil of technology. Why does it matter? Local and state authorities have focused enforcement efforts on prostitution as a way of uncovering human traffickers and rescuing juveniles.
Last week’s sting in Coralville, for example, led officers to one woman — Melody McCullom, 21, of Waterloo — who they arrested on suspicion of human trafficking, pandering involving a minor, pimping and prostitution. Police said she admitted to using her 16-year-old sister in her sex-trade business, which she said nets thousands each week.
McCullom’s arrest on suspicion of trafficking a person younger than 18 is only the fourth under the Iowa human trafficking statute since it was enacted in 2006, according to Iowa Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning. Only one of the other three arrests ended in a conviction.
If McCullom is convicted of trafficking, she could face up to 10 years in prison on that charge alone.
“So far, human trafficking arrests in Iowa are rare,” said Roxann Ryan, senior criminal intelligence analyst for the Iowa Department of Public Safety. “Once we start recognizing the crime is occurring and we know what to look for, it’s much more likely we’ll prosecute them.”
Savvy criminals can shroud their identities on the Internet, use cellphones to coordinate secret rendezvous and use the Web to ensnare juveniles, said Ryan.
“As the world has become smaller and we have become more global, I think the prostitution trade has changed a great deal,” Ryan said. “We don’t have the same problem with street walkers that we did decades ago. Now people can advertise online, and it’s a different challenge for law enforcement to be able to discover those kinds of crimes.”
‘They are ripe for recruitment’
Prostitution arrests in Johnson and Linn counties have been on the rise since 2002, according to FBI statistics. Johnson County reported seven prostitution arrests in 2009, the most recent data available, compared with none in 2002. Linn County reported 11 arrests for prostitution in 2009 compared with six in 2002.
Statewide, prostitution arrests have dropped since 2002, falling from 377 to 142 in 2009, according to the FBI. Experts speculate that decline could be the result of budget cuts and the new enforcement challenges authorities face.
Despite the drop, Ryan said, prostitution remains a top priority as it’s intricately tied to human trafficking. Many of the women and girls involved in the sex-for-money trade aren’t doing so by choice, she said. but being trafficked and forced into it.
“Our concern is that people don’t have a realistic opportunity to leave if they decide it’s not what they want to do,” she said.
And the virtual shift in the prostitution landscape has enabled human traffickers to more easily prey on juveniles.
“We have a lot of young people who are able to get online, and they are ripe for recruitment,” Ryan said.
Human trafficking of young people is enabled by the demand, said Ryan. A recent study out of Georgia showed 1,200-some hits a month on Internet sites promoting underage prostitutes, Ryan said.
“And I don’t think Georgia is a hotbed for human trafficking more than any other state is,” she said. “There certainly seems to be a large number of people interested in finding underage prostitutes.”
Coralville police Lt. Shane Kron said that’s what his office has found. McCullom, arrested in the recent sting, admitted to creating a webpage for her younger sister, for example.
“Prostitution is a cover for the trafficking of minors, which is our real bottom-line focus,” he said. “We are trying to rescue kids.”
Kron said his department is following up on leads that they’re hopeful will lead to more juvenile rescues.
Plenty of the people who responded to the undercover advertisements out of Coralville were worried about getting caught, even asking if the undercover agents were police, he said.
“Nobody asked us if we were old enough,” he said.
“Guys try to convince themselves that it’s not their problem, and it’s not their fault,” Kron said. “It absolutely is.”
‘The technology makes it easier’
Several officers with the Iowa City Police Department contributed time and expertise for the prostitution sting in Coralville. Iowa City Police Chief Sam Hargadine said his detectives have found technology beyond the Internet also has created new investigative challenges.
For example, he said, some perpetrators use “throw away” cellphones that only accept text messages and can be tossed once they’re compromised.
“The technology makes it easier for a john and a prostitute to meet up,” Hargadine said.
Teresa Downing-Matibag, an assistant professor at Iowa State University and executive director of the Iowa-based Network Against Human Trafficking, said that although technology has thrown up some unique road blocks for investigators, it also has empowered detectives in new ways.
Microsoft, for example, is developing a “digital DNA” model that will capture images of young people used in adult advertisements and run those photos through the missing children’s network. She said investigators have worked to shut down much of the prostitution and child-trafficking on Craigslist.
Downing-Matibag said other less conspicuous websites have taken its place, and the Internet is still posing new threats.
“It gives the traffickers more opportunities to put multiple layers between themselves and the detectives,” she said.
Related articles
- More arrests expected in prostitution sting (thegazette.com)
- 17 arrested in Johnson County prostitution sting (thegazette.com)
