FBI arrests hundreds in US child sex crackdown
Pastor Dale Morgan
FBI arrests hundreds in US child sex crackdown*
* Story Highlights
* FBI: 300 prostitution workers arrested; 21 juveniles rescued
* Raids conducted in 16 cities nationwide over the past five days
* Arrests part of agency's five-year-old "Innocence Lost" initiative
* Study: 300,000 kids in U.S. are at risk of being sexually exploited
From Terry Frieden
CNN Justice Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a series of raids, authorities have arrested more
than 300 members of prostitution operations and removed 21 juveniles
from sex-selling rings, the FBI announced Wednesday.
The sweeps were conducted in 16 cities nationwide over the past five
days, authorities said.
"Our top priority in these cases has always been to identify children
victims and move swiftly to remove them from these dangerous
environments," FBI Director Robert Mueller said.
Mueller said this week's sweeps bring to 433 the number of child victims
recovered in the five years since the FBI began its Innocence Lost
initiative. The program was designed to combat a growing problem of
underage prostitution.
"These kids are victims. They lack the ability to walk away. This is the
21st-century slavery," said Ernie Allen, president of the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
A University of Pennsylvania study found that an estimated 300,000
children in the United States are at risk of being sexually exploited
for commercial uses, according to The Associated Press. Most of those
children are "runaways or thrown-aways," Allen said.
Allen said that about 1.6 million children run away from home each year,
although most quickly return unharmed. Boys as young as 11 and girls as
young as 12 are often targeted by prostitution rings
Allen praised the FBI and Justice Department for increased attention to
fighting the problem, which he said is vastly underreported.
He said that until federal authorities began to crack down on use of
child prostitutes in recent years, many pimps and prostitute rings who
felt pressure from local police simply moved their operations to other
jurisdictions.
Authorities said that 290 of the 345 arrests made this week were adult
prostitutes. Most will be charged with state crimes. However,
increasingly, federal prosecutors have brought charges in cases
involving juveniles because federal penalties are much more harsh than
state penalties, officials said.
Justice Department and FBI officials noted two cases in which
individuals trafficking in child prostitution received life sentences.
The 16 cities and counties where raids were carried out this week are
Los Angeles, Sacramento and Oakland, California; Las Vegas and Reno,
Nevada; Phoenix, Arizona; Houston and Dallas, Texas; Detroit, Michigan;
Toledo, Ohio; Boston, Massachusetts; Washington; Montgomery County,
Maryland; Atlanta, Georgia; and Miami and Tampa, Florida.