The Relationship between Street Gangs and Human Trafficking

Laura J. Lederer, a writer for the Public Discourse, and president of Global Centurion, an anti-human trafficking group, says that "In order to truly stop human sex trafficking successfully, we must take seriously that street gangs are a large part of the problem."  A popular statistic says that 86% of US cities with a population of 100,000 or more report gang activity. Included in that gang activity is human trafficking; in fact, gangs have become more involved in human trafficking in recent years because unlike drugs and guns, people can be repeatedly sold for profit. Lederer goes on to give us two specific cases in which gang members were involved in human trafficking.

Global Centurion, says that over the last couple years, criminal gang activity in the United States has become more of a problem than people think.  However, at the same time human trafficking has also become one of the fastest expanding crimes in the United States. Global Centurion has also found numerous cases in which gang members have been prosecuted for crimes related to human trafficking. Consequently, The 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment says that at least 35 states and U.S territories have reported that gangs in their jurisdictions are involved in human trafficking. In August 2013, Portland State University released a study on child sex trafficking in Portland, Oregon that showed 49.1 percent of youth in the study had been affected by gang activity.

According to Lederer and Global Centurion, there are numerous solutions to the problem. The one I want to talk about specifically is the idea that "state and local government must add human trafficking to the list of suspect activities for criminal gangs." This is important because it would erase the confusion of distinguishing the two illegal activities from each other; giving law enforcement the ability to enact stiffer punishments on gangs. One state that has already put this idea into effect is California. On April 5th, 2014 California lawmakers proposed a bill that would classify human trafficking as a gang crime - the bill went on to pass. Sen. Marty Block supported the bill saying that  "In San Diego, the human sex trafficking trade brings in $97 million in revenue, more money than drug trafficking, according to a new Urban Institute study. We need to fight this on all fronts.’’