A Baltimore councilman wants to focus on punishing people who purchase sex as a way to curb demand, but will it work in a city that has a bustling red-light district just blocks from city hall? Now, Councilman Burnett, you recently decided to tackle the crime of human trafficking.
Is there a personal story behind this? However, last spring, in , I received a call from a constituent of mine who at the time was a counselor at Western High School. And she indicated that one of her students was believed to have been trafficked in nearby D. So we spent a lot of time making sure that schools were invited and their parents knew about it, and we held the hearing.
There were also gaps in collaboration between law enforcement agencies between, within the police department, Baltimore Police Department, and between the police department and the school police. And not really a lot of focus, from my perspective. And so in July of , I introduced the resolution that established the Baltimore City Human Trafficking Collaborative as a way to try and have more of a coordinated response to this huge issue in Baltimore City.
Can you, can you describe this bill a little bit, what it looks like right now? In Montgomery County most notably has the same legislation, as well as a few other jurisdictions across the United States.
The idea is to penalize purchasing as a tactic to reduce the demand for victims of trafficking. And oftentimes the customers are the same customers. And so these are just some of the same people who may not know much about human trafficking at all, know that the person they are with is being trafficked or not.
