How can you tell when an issue has gotten traction? When it spawns its own urban legend. They say that one in three teens will be recruited by an exploiter. In we tested that theory in Westlake Park. Most youth were first engaged in this between the ages of 11 and Juvenile custodians elsewhere report similarly high correlations between sexual exploitation and a history of domestic sexual or physical abuse: 93 to 95 percent in Dallas, 71 percent for sexual abuse alone in Las Vegas.
Or is it a decision made at the end of a long series of impacts? Most return home fairly soon; but about 1, do not. The phenomenon is nothing new around here. It looked for all the world like lunchtime at high school, until one girl would step to the curb, lean over one of the cars cruising slowly by, open the passenger door and, with a quick over-the-shoulder glance, duck in and ride off.
In those pre-digital days, the only way for most pimps, johns and tricks to connect was in person, through a windshield rather than a laptop or smartphone screen. Today some desperate souls still walk Highway 99 and, rarely, Rainier Ave.
But smartphones and the internet make the whole world a track. When police search motel rooms for prostitution and pimping paraphernalia, they look for drugs, cash, condoms — and laptops. Jim Theofelis, the executive director of The Mockingbird Society , which advocates for homeless and foster youth, tells of one girl he knew from Yakima. She met a guy on a chatline.
She thought he was her own age, and ever so sweet and understanding. When she complained about a spat with her family, he told her to take the bus to Seattle and meet him in front of a juice stand in Northgate Mall.
