The Leon County Sheriff’s Office has been tapped as one of six law enforcement agencies in the country to help research and combat human trafficking. LCSO will be the only Florida law enforcement agency participating – and will share its findings with the others.
The Leon Sheriff’s Office was asked to participate by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The six demonstration sites will be testing and providing feedback to the Association throughout the next year. The effort is supported by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Sheriff Walt McNeil says Tallahassee has dynamics that offer valuable information for research. It’s a college town, for one. It has the corridor of I-10 – known to be a criminal byway -- running through the community. And while its hotel industry isn’t as vibrant as those in Florida’s bigger cities, McNeil says the lessons learned in Leon County will be shared effectively around the state.
“We are working ahead of most agencies across the country in our efforts to deal with sex trafficking,” he said. “And we’re doing a pretty good job of coordinating and getting assistance from the industry, the hotel industry in our community.”
That’s especially important because the National Human Trafficking Hotline found that 75 percent of trafficking survivors reported coming into contact with hotels and motels at some point while being trafficked.
“And I think, because we’re so effective right now, that we will come up with some plans and some things that others can replicate across our state,” McNeil added. “And that’s what we’re looking for – something that we can put together that other cities and states of our size – or bigger – can do the same things we’re doing.”
McNeil also stresses the importance of strong partnerships to find and assist survivors. Here’s LCSO Chief of Investigations Ben Benedict:
“You can quite often find out a person is being trafficked and work towards getting them out of the situation that they’re in, but they need lots and lots of resources afterward,” Benedict said. “They need support, they need help, they need housing, they need a new way for income, they need all of those things. And if they don’t have that, we have to work toward working with our partners to get there.”
Robin Hassler Thompson is part of LCSO’s local team. She’s the executive director of Tallahassee’s Survive and Thrive Advocacy Center, which supports survivors and trains organizations and businesses in how to spot and prevent human trafficking.
“People might think someone who’s sex-trafficked could only be a young girl, but boys are sex-trafficked. Men are sex-trafficked,” she said. “People think only people who are immigrants can be labor-trafficked. American citizens are labor-trafficked in all kinds of hotel, restaurant, agriculture, any kinds of service jobs…”
Experts say the crime of human trafficking can go on unseen. That’s why LCSO and the other five demonstration sites will be developing a toolkit to identify victims and conduct investigations. Part of the toolkit project will be teaching people how to spot the signs.
Meanwhile, under new laws, the Florida Department of Children and Families will be conducting more oversight of adult safe homes and tightening standards for hotels and motels where trafficking may be taking place.
