The Street Crimes Unit is continuing to fulfill its purpose. Yesterday, June 5, detectives from the Eugene Police Department's Special Investigations Unit and officers from the Street Crimes Unit worked a prostitution and human trafficking sting focusing on the purchasers of services. Officers and detectives posted ads posing as prostitutes on open-source, publicly-accessible websites. During this operation some individuals responded to the ads and three purchasers johns actually arrived to meet the detectives.
All three were charged with Prostitution. Charged were. Part of this operation also included an officer who posed as a purchaser and responded to ads posted by sex workers.
Several sex workers engaged in conversation, but only one arrived. This person was not charged, but instead offered services to assist in getting out of that lifestyle. Through several investigations, officers and detectives have learned that many of these sex workers are actually being victimized by "pimps".
The pimps use several tactics to trap these victims into what many call modern-day slavery. Pimps will find persons of low self-esteem or in a vulnerable state. The behavior escalates to coercing the women to perform sex acts with others and then ultimately ends with the threat of or actual use of violence to keep them working.
During interviews many sex workers have talked about the dangers of their profession. Often times sex workers get assaulted and or robbed by the "johns" they agree to meet with and after that if they are controlled by a pimp will face additional consequences for losing money. Has signs of abuse physical and mental , malnourishment, anxiety, bruising, scars, memory issues, lack of medical care.
