The Spotlight Tool; A Force for Change
We partner with Thorn to build of a new sex trafficking investigations tool that helps law enforcement identify child sex trafficking victims who are advertised online. Learn more about the impact of this tool and how it’s saving lives below.
The Spotlight Tool; a force for change
According to the most recent user survey, the web-based tool Spotlight is helping to identify child sex trafficking victims, faster. Used by law enforcement in all 50 states and Canada, Spotlight has assisted in over 25,000 cases in 2019 alone and has helped to identify nearly 5,500 child sex trafficking victims and nearly 6,500 child sex traffickers. With just over 20% of users reporting, we are confident these numbers represent the low end of our impact. Since its release in 2016, users report a 67% reduction in investigation time and this tool has helped identify an average of 10 child victims, per day.
“To say Spotlight is indispensable is an understatement. Spotlight instantly expands upon our investigations by providing large amounts of information for us to sort through and prioritize. It saves me more time than I could ever explain.”
The tool in action
The following was written by detectives inside the Ghost Unit, with the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office. Through their work investigating human trafficking cases, they use Spotlight regularly to aid in investigations
While working with the family of a runaway, the mother gave us a tip that we ran through Spotlight. With the information collected, we started to pinpoint identifying factors and heightened our response to locate this listed runaway.
The information that was surfaced in Spotlight gave us more information that helped rescue her. She is now safe and with family and Spotlight is being used to continue this investigation.
This victim is now in inpatient services out of state and on the path to recovery. We hesitate to say we rescue anyone. The victims do all of the work. We are only a part of the larger community that surrounds them while they fight. However, utilizing the High Risk Victim model of focusing on repeat runaway youth, a 12 year old was identified as at risk.
Over the next 18 months, we worked with local resources to stabilize her, but due to a life of trauma she continued to run during this timeframe. She met a trafficker who complimented her and treated her nice at first. That quickly changed, and within a week she had been trafficked in and out of state. At her lowest point, she reached out to us for help.
She did not make any disclosures for months. However, when she did, it was Spotlight that we used to help piece the case together.
Fast-Forward 2 years: She successfully completed numerous inpatient programs, and the traffickers have been successfully prosecuted. She is in school, in a stable living situation, and getting her first job. None of this erases those past traumas, but she found that she has a family in the community that surrounded her (law enforcement, prosecutors, victim advocates, and non-profits). She keeps in touch, and has a hope in her voice that wasn’t there before. One day at a time.