In recent months, state and federal lawmakers are putting forth bills for federal funding to address the needs of desperate American children who are forced to prostitute right here in America.

The devil is in the details and a close look at their meager budgetary allocations are dedicated mostly to police officer salaries, patrol officers, detectives, investigators, prosecutor salaries, trial expenses, investigation expenses-wire taps and training for law enforcement and social service providers.  Token funding is appropriated for clothing and daily needs out of the naïve belief that this will keep children who are prostituting from returning to the pimp who has paid more attention to them than any responsible adult caregiver or school.  Legislator’s ill conceived bill even proposes job training for children who have never even completed middle school.  The result is nothing more than “pretty jails”.

www.childrenofthenight.org/SenatorWyndensPressRelease.pdf  

Stop letting law enforcement raise money on the backs of American child prostitutes through the criminal justice system; holding our children in jails, against their will, until they testify against a pimp/trafficker and then releasing these defenseless children into the dysfunctional family or social service system that failed these children in the first place.

And be alert to legislation advocating the increase of penalties for pimps/traffickers because these laws force our children to spend more time in jail while the pimps/traffickers are prosecuted.  Pimping and trafficking laws are strong enough and most prosecutors experience little difficulty prosecuting the dangerous pimps with existing pimping/trafficking statutes in addition to kidnapping, torture, rape and other violent crimes.

America’s children victimized by prostitution require intense residential services where they are given an opportunity to be a child-sometimes for the first time in their lives.  They need to attend school in a safe environment, to have their medical and psychological needs met and to have access to safe living arrangements when they enter adulthood.