The Trap: the deadly sex-trafficking cycle in American prisons

the thing about Orlando is that it's one of the sex trafficking capitals the United States because of Disneyland there's so much international tourism when people drop their kids off at Disney you know a lot of these men will go off and they'll wanna party this is what makes it attractive for the sex traffickers is the demand when investigators blew in the windows of this Washington Shores home and found suspected victims of human trafficking inside it was the evidence they needed to arrest career criminal Richard Rawls one last time I'd really like to see what this house looks like after all these years I've heard so many stories about it man is accused of robbing a house of horrors he's a you're a career criminal haven't you learned your lesson what an idea the 75 year old accused pimp has allegedly been recruiting inmates from a women's prison in Ocala and forcing them to prostitute to make him money he would have somebody at this house surfing's website all day long and they be looking for girls that are be announcing looking for girls that didn't have a place to go people with drug histories for prostitution type charges if you go in you google prostitutes and Lowell people will pop up and then they look through pictures and be able to decide who they want to write okay how much money do you think this face will make me anybody can write anybody in prison or jail how many women were you ready to imprison two or three what were you writing in for concentration I was searching for love and all the wrong places I would like I have been molested and I had been raped when I was 16 so I didn't have that love when Rick started sending me the letters he told me everything that I wanted to hear such as I was gonna be a prostitute anymore if I wanted to get high that would be my choice but I would come home and I would live in his house and everything would be okay and he would be the love that I was searching for there it is but when I got to his house it was a completely different story the reality sets in once they're there it's like all of a sudden we just left one prison we got into another where they can't leave [Music] Richard how many women did you have in that house yeah and I really felt like if I left this person they will kill me [Music] Richard Rawls was the first sex trafficker convicted the United States for trafficking women from prison the only thing special about him does he got caught [Music] this story doesn't end with the arrest of Richard rules a year-long guardian investigation has found that the rules case is part of a pattern of recruitment and exploitation that is happening across the United States as America's female prison population booms jails and prisons are becoming the new hunting grounds for human traffickers [Music] human trafficking takes many different forms but is defined by exploitation it often doesn't involve criminal gangs or people transported across borders it can be very small and very local pimp controlled prostitution is now recognized as one of the most brutal forms of human trafficking in the United States it is characterized by violence manipulation and coercion it works like any other business model the seller is the pimp or trafficker who is profiting from prostitution the customer is the sex buyer or the John and the commodity is the victim at about 14 15 years old I started sniffing cocaine and drinking and smoking pot and from my friend it was like experimenting for me it was escaping just trying to escape all of the stuff that was happening at home my first boyfriend he was 24 years old and I was 14 years old he's having me have threesomes with different men and I'm thinking he's gonna love me if I do this but that romantic relationship ended up turning into a really exploitive relationship and it started as like can you like sleep with his friends do him a favor I ended up work in the streets in Maine south of Western Nicky spent a decade in prostitution and addiction often under the control of different pimps I can just remember stealing like really to humanize you know like people looking at me like I was some kind of animal you know the soleus feeling of like just wanting to die and waiting for your body to catch up kind of thing one of my biggest fears when I was out there was that I was gonna die behind a dumpster somewhere and like a piece of trash and nobody was gonna even know who I was or even care I remember being in here a lot especially like in the middle of the night I would always try to like go short on my drug so I couldn't save the money to get a cup of coffee to my first mug shot at 24 years old and that's half way through 30 30 years old though think about 50 and my last month short I had just been beaten up by a sex buyer so like my flip was split my I was black that was my last arrest you know I had like taken on this identity of like that was my only value that was my only worth to this lake world I was a victim of domestic violence and the domestic violence led to drug use the drug use led to prostitution and prostitution led to trafficking the two pimps that I was involved with were both drug users so everything's fine as longer there are drugs when there's not drugs that's when the violence in my situation occurred I've been raped beaten and sodomized but on countless times they can't Valastro Miriam became trapped in a cycle of addiction and prostitution disappearing from her children's lives for over three years I walked away from family members my mother and father and children was very painful so I've tried to stay as high as I could I tried to blow my heart up mother's days that I missed I tried to smoke enough crack the trafficker would buy it because he thought those days I might leave even go back home like Marian many women are arrested for crimes they commit whilst under the control of a trafficker we're going to the location where I was arrested the day of the arrest much I've heard sent me out to find [Music] they say is history if you could pull over anywhere right there by these fences in this there's a lot area right here is where they used to sell the drugs look at that it's still there this wasn't here before like this whole fence here this was like one big open lack 14 years ago I was arrested right here this is a very important moment for me I haven't been back to this particular spot since that happened I got 14 years cleaned - July 29th this year hey yeah god is good the police rode down on us and they turned this corner and stopped right here in front of these wrought iron fences and put us all up against the fence and I went to jail as soon as they are arrested and charged women are becoming potential targets for human traffickers in many states personal data of anyone arrested for a crime is immediately put online this often includes mug shots criminal records release dates and home addresses traffickers are then using this information to locate and cherry-pick their victims after they have identified a target the grooming begins women will often start receiving letters but try to establish a relationship you hear that door clicking typically when you're going through and then it's that that click that you hear never the first time I came back my thoughts were am I allowed to leave are they gonna keep my shoes sometimes still it causes like your anxiety you know it's like it makes your heart I just remember the feelings of the dread the hopelessness how did I do that get here again Nikki was an inmate at this jail where she was also groomed and recruited by traffickers now she comes back in to try and stop others from falling into the same trap a lot of us don't understand trafficking fully I didn't for a long time a trafficker or a pimp or boyfriend or whatever when you want to call him right is somebody that's benefiting from our process that's not worse than the John it is I yeah absolutely absolutely yeah they know that we need to join me they know that we're a week at that point we're desperate so they're taking advantage of us do you ever see these men going to jail nope they're sitting outside right new guy's letters waiting for you to get out so they can victimize you again all over again okay yeah it's okay then that's fine okay this has opened my eyes enough in a bunch of different ways of conversation because it makes me realize that these things have happened to me and I didn't realize it despite the efforts of Nicky and the jail authorities traffickers are still infiltrating this facility we discovered that prison bank accounts are a key vehicle for recruitment in many states across America anyone is able to send money to inmates a flaw in the system that traffickers are exploiting 1:29 2903 that's more money than I had yesterday 85 in next this is from a guy on Main Street who says he doesn't do dates but he's a pervert this is from another date but he helps me with money so that's why I keep talking to him sometimes you want somebody to love you and you feel like it's real sometimes I have a boyfriend but he lets me process to it so I'm like does he really love me you know and he lies to me all the time so I don't know Jill has been in and out of this Jail 22 times how are you doing I've been good I'm gonna make this short and sweet I'm gonna either send some money or just bring it up to you hello well I hope you're okay kid if you need anything I can help you with out here let me know much love somebody I don't I don't know who it is yeah he says that he rates all the girls that get picked up for prostitution he offered to send me money if we got to know each other better yeah and then when I get out they expect something when you're incarcerated yeah it gets really lonely if you have nothing you watch people eat drink coffee they just seem happier when they have stuff when you have nothing it's like you're really all alone sometimes without them we'd have nobody my family won't help me you know it's lonely the deliberate targeting of women prisoners is not something confined to one prison or one state the same pattern of grooming recruitment and trafficking is happening across the country in Texas The Guardian secured interviews with convicted human traffickers who confirmed the routine pipelining of women out of incarceration the guy recruited you can write the females in jail or you might got a cousin or know somebody that's cousin they're in jail so they tell hey you know my guy wants to talk to you and they say you know you're right here too you put money on her books a lot of people don't have the courtesy of people putting money on their books or sending them sending them letters so once you start doing that with a person over a period of time they become loyal to you so you just got you a new girl a lot of people in my neighborhood never seen a female pimp or whatever they want to call it or whatever but I didn't label myself as a pimp you know I say I just like I'm just a female with a lot of you know I got into a horse they felt alone me the love they had for me they wouldn't to do whatever my making money or whatever they had to do to please me you got the boyfriend pill you got the gorilla pimp you got the finesse pimp and you got the drug dependent the next pimp is the one that he doesn't care if she leaves you know if she stays she's gonna do what she's supposed to do we are family but we're gonna run it like a business at the end of the day and if you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing there's the door you can have the drug him those are the ones is forcing the girl to do stuff stuff because they're addicted to a drug and nine times out of ten the girl is addicted to drugs a gorilla pill is the worst kind of pimp they beat their women of the time well if they do all kind of crazy stuff to these girls to kind of make the girls the girls stay around a few times I have to put my hands on a few of them or whatever just but not nothing brutal your understanding just like rough him up a little bit choking me out of sunlight there or slap him but I never like fought them like I fight a on the street or whatever because there was my girls and I treated like Queens but when you disobey you know I say you get punished I wasn't fortunately doing thing I wasn't making them all I was doing was showing them an a a better way to do it but they were already doing it when I met them aside I feel like yes I am a minor news was illegal but I figured it would be illegal for them because prostitution is illegal enforce them I just finished these women involved in prostitution and trafficking or victims yet we're still treating them like criminals we're still criminalizing that way when you're trying to exit all of these things become problems now you're convicted criminal you have a record that's extensive and now everywhere you go that follows you imagine having to like sit in a job interview across from like a white man of power trying to explain away your prostitution really at arrest and how traumatizing that is so oftentimes we're like okay we're just gonna stay in this life because you know what options do we really have a lot of people feel trapped in it you have nobody to go to you have nowhere to burrows who when you get out it's hard to get a job you can't get an apartment because you're a feeling you don't have any money to get an apartment it's the first thing you're gonna do is we are creatures of instinct of habit so if we can't eat we're gonna go to what we know is any person whether you're doing something legal or illegal you got people to actually know the times that they release women from jail and then they're right there waiting no time like cabs and stuff waiting on people when they get out until they're approaching it and they answer hey are you all right and it goes from there [Music] fault lines in the criminal justice system mean that women are being released from prison straight into the arms of traffickers in Florida Richard rules a convicted sex offender was able to collect multiple women from jails and prisons without raising any alarms John weakens a former correctional officer at Lowell women's prison tried to warn prison authorities about rules he was repeatedly there picking these women up people that are releasing the inmates at night they're sitting there saying yeah he was here again last night and he was talking about hey he was here three times you know last month he's gonna be here next week and another one a second correctional officer Teresa Davidson also witnessed trafficking inside the prison I was listening and all of a sudden I'm hearing some sex trafficking going on with some inmates I've spoken with the majors I've spoken with all of my supervisors and they're just like yeah they don't want you bringing more work to them they want to just have a nice Pleasant day and move on I talked to certain staff members 99 percent of the staff members don't even know what human trafficking is the whole attitude was well who the hell are you and why should we care [Music] there are no laws in America on who can pick someone up from prison when they get out of prison we send them out with $50.00 how long is that gonna last somebody it's like here's your money here's your civilian clothes here's all the property that you can take with you and I need to see you get in a car with somebody the thing that helped me decide to go to Riggs houses because I had nowhere else to go he came to pick me up he brought me two sweater dresses because I got out in January he brought me boots to where I got to pick which outfit when I got into the car he had a bottle of Heineken and a lot of crack and I went right back to smoking crack my first day at prison [Music] the first two weeks is like a paradise it's like going on a honeymoon everything like wine and dine you give you everything you want then I don't know where it switches up and they're like this is what you got to do he started talking to me about going on dates that I was costing him too much money he was giving me all these drugs and then I owed him when you have a drug addiction you will do anything to get that drug when a pimp gets into your head and then you don't listen to what they say they use their physical intimidation and then when you're scared to death of being beat again your continue doing what you want what they want you to do so I used to stand right here on this corner and as you can tell there's people's shoes just laying here on the side of the road somebody probably just kicked them off my view used to be was from up here and I would just stand here like this and then people from that way or this way would come and that's what I would do [Music] not a life I like remembering but it is one of this yeah that's Jessica can't believe that she's still out here and still alive [Music] [Music] it feels good to know that I'm going back home to a safe place and I don't ever have to do this ever again like this isn't this was a past this is past history this isn't what I have to do it's not a necessity anymore it's just what I used to do [Music] this girl she probably won't talk to us but she was just released within the last month I know her how do you doing sweetheart I'm alive and I love you love you oh my god [Music] my vasculitis it's actually sometimes really heartbreaking cuz last time I was up at the prison she was there so I asked her when she was released from incarceration and she said the 12th and what has it been two weeks you know and I mean and like just just the decline is so quick women released from jail in Worcester have almost no access to recovery or support services nikki is their only safety net as they cycle out of incarceration and back into the hands of sex buyers and pimps one of these women is Jill who showed us the letters in jail after being released she is now back on the streets with no funding for a safe house the only place of refuge is Nikki's drop-in center we have everything that they could need from like long-sleeve shirts shoes pants t-shirts underwear bras they always find I do can't like just shut the door on people and say well you know she's had 20 arrests she's never gonna change you can't do that because you don't know if time 27 is it you just keep helping people I'm so sick and tired of going in and out and you know nothing never changes I don't want to die it really upsets me Rose I wish I was never an addict but we don't wake up saying hey I want a smoke crack and she don't ball my life you know I never did I know that I woke up new and I was gonna have a best life but I don't wake up thinking over those that go away that was when I got into my first relationship that I had talked about this was my me at my house when I was a kid that's my mom and my dad my graduation from nursery school I was involved in dance when I was a kid so that's me it's my sister Katie one two three oh I never thought I could be a wife I never thought I could be a woman of dignity respect I never thought I could help other people and like God has seen fit for me to have all these things and I'm just really grateful hey baby yeah those I like those too we don't be sneezing in a minute this is my oldest daughter Tasha Tasha Jones my oldest daughter and this is my youngest granddaughter and this is my step grandson in Chicago Marian has also left her life on the streets and has rebuilt her relationship with her family used to go to the west side of Chicago some people say they saw you you know we'll go there the next day and go looking for you well we will never find you never worked until that lacta 14 years ago I was in custody on the other side of those buildings in Division three my mom was in jail and that's when we taught there again and it's been up here since their Marion now works for the sheriff of Cook County just a few hundred yards away from where she was jailed she helps a lot of louder women I love spending time with my daughter and grandchildren at the same location that I was in custody and the place that I now basically had my my ministry and my work is an absolutely amazing and surreal feeling it's lovely Marion break free from her trafficker because she receives services and support in jail that offered her a way out [Music] yet across America many others will never break free [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Guardian

Views: 12,939,373

Rating: 4.689959 out of 5

Keywords: sex trafficking, human trafficking, sex trafficking from prisons, American sex trafficking, sex trafficking documentary, Richard Rawls, drug addiction, sex trafficking investigation, sex, pimps, sexual abuse, sex crime, drugs, us, prostitutes, sex workers, women, prison, jail, crack, cocaine, the trap, gdnpfpdocumentaries, prison sex, sex in prisons, human trafficking documentary, 2020, filthy rich, ghislaine maxwell, jeffrey epstein, in america, guardian, abuse, sex offenders, sexual, news

Id: mnGjQKdJrPU

Length: 32min 3sec (1923 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 29 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Ninevehwow]

We're spending an enormous amount of money on the prison system. Shouldn't we be getting more productive better citizens out of it? People who have the skills to stay out of prison and pay taxes? If I send my laptop to be fixed and they sent back ripped in half I'd lose my damn mind. We're sending petty criminals in and getting back people who are never going to hold a legal job again. Pretty shitty national investment.

[u/bukkakesasuke]

1) Hippies and black people cause too much trouble during the civil rights era and Vietnam war

2) Give millions of people time in prison for weed and other drugs, costing between 50k and 90k a person per a year from the tax payer. Somehow have more prisoners than North Korea and China. Combined. (Seriously, look it up) Convince the voting populace that these people deserve it because they broke the law (that was just made) through intense school programs and such making weed and other drugs out to be the devil. Be sure to only enforce these laws strictly in poor neighborhoods so that there's no outrage among those with the means to do something about it or wealthy lawyers snorting coke.

3) Pay the prisoners nothing or almost nothing to use their slave correctional labor to make uniforms for McDonald's, all the helmets in the military, etc., subsidizing the military industrial complex that these hippies, poors and blacks protested. Use the money from fines to give huge police forces and city workers jobs and trinkets, allowing stepped up enforcement in poor neighborhoods and more prisoners so more fines/free labor so... You see where this is going.

4)When the prisoners are released, strip them of their right to vote so they can't change the system, give them an unerasable felony record so they can't get another job and will likely fall into prison again because the only adequately paying jobs that will take them are prostitution and drugs. Also you'll get longer sentences for unrelated crimes if you have a criminal record (see: man sentenced to life in prison for stealing slice of pizza for reference).

5) ??????

6) Profit

[u/bachslunch]

Legalize all drugs and prostitution. This is the only solution. Then tax and regulate it. If we had government brothels along the lines of Bunny Ranch in Nevada where the women are tested and everything’s legit then it gets rid of pimps. Legalizing drugs gets rid of all the drug cartels. It seems we never learned from prohibition.

[u/slayer_f-150]

Orlando resident here. I know it is pedantic but it's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me..

In the opening scene to this documentary he says "The thing about Orlando, it is one of the sex trafficking capitols of the United States because of Disneyland" ...as they are passing underneath the entrance to Walt Disney World.

"Disneyland" - Anaheim, California.

"Walt Disney World" - Orlando, Florida.

Edit: quotation.

[u/_agent_perk]

Pretty weird seeing Worcester main South in a documentary. "Corner of benefit and main? Yep, that is where the prostitutes are."

[u/faithle55]

Goddammit I can't watch this documentary, although I'd like to, because the bloody incidental music is the loudest bloody thing I can hear.

1. Don't make it distracting.

2. Don't make it loud.

[u/Harry_W_99]

I still don’t get how it costs the government 50K and up on a prisoner per year . I don’t spend anywhere near that and eat much better food. Money going elsewhere perhaps?

[u/AnonymousFairy]

this was literally posted here 3 days ago.

[u/notjawn]

If this piqued your interest I would also recommend Private Violence by Cynthia Hill. It's a good look on how exploitation and abuse goes right under our noses most, if not all of time.