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By Jackie Valley (contact) 
Monday, Nov. 8, 2010 | 2:14 p.m.
A three-day nationwide crackdown on the sexual exploitation of children meant to highlight the problem led to the arrest of 51 adults in the Las Vegas area, FBI officials said.
Those 51 adults were arrested on local and state prostitution charges. Local officials also rescued one juvenile from prostitution involvement, arrested five people for attempting to solicit prostitution and arrested five more people involved in prostitution for other charges, said FBI Las Vegas special agent Joseph Dickey.
The arrests were part of Operation Cross Country V, a 72-hour national enforcement action with the Innocence Lost National Initiative, which included actions in 40 cities in 34 FBI divisions across the country, officials said.
The weekend operation led to the nationwide recovery of 69 child victims of prostitution and the arrest of 884 people, including 99 pimps, FBI officials said.
Operation Cross Country V was meant to draw awareness to the sexual exploitation of children by providing a three-day snapshot of the problem, Dickey said.
"This isn't anything we don't do on a daily basis," he said.
The FBI launched the Innocence Lost National Initiative in 2003, which includes 39 task forces across the country, to highlight the growing problem of child sex trafficking in the United States.
The Innocence Lost Task Force in Las Vegas works with the Metro Police Vice section to combat child prostitution, Dickey said. The FBI primarily supplies training and equipment for the officers, he said.
Since 2003, more than 1,000 children involved in prostitution have been rescued in the Las Vegas area, most of whom were between the ages of 14 to 17, Dickey said. Some children as young as 12 years old have been rescued, he said.
Las Vegas authorities rescued 155 children in 2009 and 99 children so far this year, Dickey said.
Those numbers, he said, aren't any better or worse than other similar-sized cities in the United States.
"In any populated area, unfortunately, you're going to have children involved in the prostitution business," Dickey said.
FBI officials said task force operations typically begin locally, targeting places such as truck stops, casinos, street "tracks" and websites based on intelligence gathered by investigators in each jurisdiction. Most people are initially arrested for state and local prostitution charges, and information from those arrests often leads to uncovering organized efforts to prostitute women and children in many states, officials said.
While I appreciate the effort for underage kids, they always put the word "child" in the headline of these things to grab attention and get poeple too hysterical to really think. They want you to conclude that all of them were kids. Not true. Not even close.
And I am sure somoene will willfully fail to read the first 8 words of my post and carefully read the rest to spin my position with the most inaccurate bias so they can attack.
If you really analyze the numbers, which most poeple dont, less than 10% of those taken into custody or protection where underage girls. 69 out of 884 is less than 10%. Take that and also consider that only 99 pimps were "suspected in 884 poeple involved. That is also around 10%.
So nearly 90% of them as independents. The vast majority of these arrests were independent adults who were pimping themselves.
culturechange -- good call. I also noticed despite the headline the article gave no ages on the 69 "victims" they "rescued." Considering the age of consensual sex in Nevada is 16, I'm suspicious this is just another fluff piece to justify police budgets -- just more herdspeak.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac H Tiffany (1819)
Culturechange,
Do you have children? Clearly no, since the percentage of those involved in this sting has no impact on you. I am unsure how you can negate the impact of whatever percentage being underage unless you are one that doesn't see the harm in juvenile prostitution. Perhaps you have sampled the wares of those under the rightful age and thus you can justify your comments?
WTF? I thought all this nasty stuff would go away after craigslist was force to stop adult ad's.
I don't care what adults do voluntarily. Not my business. However, anyone who would kidnap, torture or force a child or grown woman into prostitution is a vile scumbag who deserves no consideration. They should be locked up and the key thrown away. I wonder how culturechange would feel if he was one of the 69 forced to perform sex acts? One would then become one too many.
There are THREE separate issues here:
1) Underage prostitution
2) Forced prostitution
and
3) Compensated sex
between consenting adults.
Alright, throw out the last one, because most who pontificate on forums like this one can agree consensual transactions are acceptable. But I venture that most actual cases of prostitution have factors (1) and/or (2) present. If you believe in "free will" and you believe protecting children from the violence and depredations that complete strangers can AND DO visit upon girls they pick and use for cheap, sleazy sex,
then coerced prostitution and under-aged prostitution has no business in your canon of thought. Or our streets.
Legalize it for consenting adults. I, for one, like cheap, sleazy, *consensual* sex. But shoot first, ask questions later, for perpetrators of any other kind.
dtj: you got it right. This isn't really about prostitution. It's about violence against women. It's about kidnapping and rape and involuntary servitude. It goes against every principle this country stands for and must be stopped.
Agreed. The major issue is involuntary servitude; especially since some of the victims are as young as 12.
KillerB: You are correct that the age of consent is 16, but regardless prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas. Anyone under the age of 18 is legally considered a child. What is even more disgusting is that there are people who actively seek out child prostitutes, and these people NEED to be caught.
Newman2, you are wrong on your assumptions which serve as the basis for your argument. Your thinking is typical of hysterical voters today. Make incorrect assumptions (or ventures or speculations), without any reference to fact (or any attempt find facts), so that you can willfully arrive at a hysterical conclusion that is not support by reason or fact.....and hide behind the kids on top of it.
I do have a daughter. I dont want her involved in underage prostitution. But after she becomes an adult, I no longer have any say so. That does not mean I want her to become a prostitute. It means have to respect her as an adult when she becomes one. She is my daughter and I lover her, but I dont own her especially after she becomes an adult. I can condemn her decisions, but I cannot control them after she is an adult.
"But I venture that most actual cases of prostitution have factors (1) and/or (2) present"
by BTJ
Again, another unnecessary assumption to support a willfull, hysterical opinion that is not based on fact. You dont need to venture or speculation or assume. The numbers are in the article that demonstrate that most of the ones arrested were independent adult involved in prostition for thier own profit.
"dtj: you got it right. This isn't really about prostitution. It's about violence against women. It's about kidnapping and rape and involuntary servitude"
Again, what about the overwhelming majority of independent women, as demonstated by analyzing the stats, who were wilfully selling themselves for money?
Oh and Newman2, I was also correct in my original post. Someone did fail to read the first 8 words of my original post so that they could spin my post and attack my opinion.....you did.
I also found that the article seemed to pull you in in a fallacious way sorta like a National Enquire headline, However the most disturbing of all is the fact that adults have a insatiable desire to engage in sexual acts with kids (less than 16 years of age) Regardless of it being willful or unwillingly.
This goes to prove that legalizing prostitution will not change this because these adults want what is deemed taboo or illegal that is what they desire the most.
"...anyone who would kidnap, torture or force a child or grown woman into prostitution is a vile scumbag who deserves no consideration." ..... "It's about kidnapping and rape and involuntary servitude."
lvfacts101 -- I see you're another one of those who make it up as you go along. Nothing in this article even remotely mentions anything you mentioned. Until you get a grip on the facts you're irrelevant to this Discussion.
casinokid -- pay attention! Federal law pretty much defines anyone under 18 as a child (not counting the military). As you mentioned Nevada's age of consent is 16, yet under the common law girls could marry at 12. Some states still allow marriage at age 14 with parental consent.
"The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people." - Noam Chomsky
ladies and gentlemen, once again it's killerb here to defend the rights of pimps, pedophiles, and panhandlers, and also to offer us another one of her pedantic quotes. don't disagree with her though or she may brand you as "irrelevant". i get the feeling that society completely ignores her and this is her only outlet.
ladies and gentlemen, bam1969 is here to distort the facts and make hysterical assertions that anyone who disagrees is defending pimps and pedophiles. The people disagreeing are not doing that. The people disagreeing are telling you to analyze the facts presented and see that 90% of those involved were independent adult women "pimping" themselves.
casinokid, I agree the headline is misleading. That is not an accident. It is intended to hystericalize the readers and it is very effective as you can see. I did not see anything in the article that indicates the ages of the kids in this particular bust. Perhaps they are between 16 and 18.
Additionally, being as the most of the poeple involved were adults, I dont think this proves anything about legalizing prostitution having no effect. It doesn't prove one way or the other until we know more about the age of kids involved.
win a few. loss a few. not sure that chomsky said all of that that has been printed. child prostitution is a serious crime and exploitation of children is not a matter to try to be cute about either.
Wow - people defending this.
These children's lives are OVER - get it? The pimps and johns will serve their time, pay their fines, whatever, but for the children who were coerced into this - their lives will forever more be just misery and pain, taken from them by PERVERTS that you miserable people are defending.
Disgusting-
"Wow - people defending this." &c.
Jenlv -- you're one of the reasons I seldom venture out of the trusted comments. A quick review of the posts doesn't show anybody "defending this." And like lvfacts101, what the article doesn't provide, you just make it up.
Do try to think outside the herd next time.
"Show me the man and I'll find you the crime." -- Lavrentiy Beria, chief of the Soviet security and secret police under Stalin