The Denton County District Attorney’s Office announced a partnership with the Human Trafficking Institute on Friday in hopes of increasing prosecution in human trafficking cases.
Tyler Dunman, the vice president of programs for the Human Trafficking Institute, said the partnership is HTI’s first in North Texas and the first training session was a great start toward a long-term solution.
“Our objective is to support law enforcement and the DA’s office in identifying, investigating and prosecuting human trafficking cases,” he said. “So, this launch and partnership allows us to work together to create and find effective ways to train and support local law enforcement efforts when it comes to human trafficking cases.”
According to HTI, human trafficking cases can include someone forcing a woman to sell themselves for sex online, a child being groomed online through an app or social media.
“They think they’re talking to a peer, but it’s actually some 40-year-old perpetrator who’s trying to get them to send photos or meet up for sex,” said Dunman.
Jamie Beck, the First Assistant Criminal District Attorney for Denton County, said victims of human trafficking often engage in criminal activity. The partnership with HTI aims to get trafficking victims out of the system rather than just arresting them for crimes they commit.
“For a long time, victims of human trafficking were arrested as criminals, because they do engage in criminal activity, so they were arrested and prosecuted,” she said. “We realized we could all do better and that’s going to take specialized training to be able to work these complex investigations and be able to identify victims that aren’t just criminals, that are being victimized, as well.”
Beck said victims often don’t self-report, so it is important for local law enforcement agencies to learn how to identify human trafficking cases so the perpetrators behind the system can be help accountable.
“It’s very underreported because true victims of human trafficking are under control and they’re not going to self report,” she said. “So, we have to train law enforcement on the streets to dig deeper, ask more specific questions, find out more to be able to identify the true nature of the relationship and the type of case that they’re dealing with.”
A big part of the partnership is training and education, which Dunman said helps law enforcement understand the problem and separate it from common misconceptions. He said human trafficking can often be confused with human smuggling.
“Human trafficking has nothing to do with the border or illegal immigration, necessarily, that’s often a misconception that it is a border-related crime,” said Dunman. “Every county in the state, and the nation, is facing human trafficking. Human trafficking is something that happens in neighborhoods, it’s the exploitation of people for usually forced sex or forced labor and that happens in a multitude of ways.”
HTI’s job is to help law enforcement understand the difference, be able to identify and investigate it happening in the county at the local level and then prosecute it at the higher levels.
That means getting the right kind of evidence and information from victims so the district attorney’s office can prosecute perpetrators.
“We’re able to talk to the witness or victim early on in the game so we can have a successful prosecution at the end of the road to keep our community safe in partnership with law enforcement,” said Beck. “If they’re not getting what we need, we can’t successfully prosecute and we have to let the perpetrators go, and nobody wants that, so we all have to have a teamwork approach.”
After the first training session, Dunman said the work with Denton County has been uplifting, so far.
“Denton County has been great,” he said. “They have a lot of new leadership and its law enforcement agencies and the district attorney have really stepped up to combat this crime in the county.”
Currently, the partnership between the district attorney’s office and HTI will last for three years, but it could be extended.
“We’re off to a great start,” said Dunman. “We’re excited to get it kicked off and we’ll be working with local authorities for a number of years as we work toward a long-term solution.”
For more information on the work of the Human Trafficking Institute, visit the organization’s website.
