Miami and its surrounding metropolitan area comprise the most populous metropolis in the southeastern United States in Miami-Dade County, FL. The county has a population close to 440,000 residents in the city proper and over 2.5 million in the greater metro area. As a major international trade port and tourist destination, the city has struggled with extensive crime problems  related to prostitution and sex trafficking. Crimes occurring during prostitution transactions include rape, homicide, assault, drug trafficking, kidnapping, child endangerment, and child sexual abuse materials (CSAM, often called “child pornography” in state criminal codes).  An example of a local case occurred in May of 2021, when a Miami-Dade licensed real estate agent was arrested for money laundering and operation of two brothels within the county. According to the arrest report from the State Attorney Office’s Human Trafficking Task Force, the agent was had been running two brothels in Miami-Dade County: one disguised as a spa which was located next door to a child day care center and one operating out of an apartment in a luxury community in Dorla, FL. Authorities stated that the agent had been operating the illicit business for more than two years, and when arrested in 2018 for unrelated charges, had his daughter serve as the primary operator. The real estate agent told officials that he would recruit women through advertisements that he found on Craigslist. Officials suspected the agent of attempting to flee the country after he requested ledgers be destroyed, withdrew $25,000 in cash, and tried to get his passport through “hidden means.” Investigators intercepted the fugitive attempt and arrested the agent for more than hundred charges, including numerous felony counts for money laundering and one that lists over 75 counts of receiving sex buyers for the purpose of prostitution under Florida statute 796.07(c).  In January, a man was arrested for forcing a woman into prostitution (which is, by definition, sex trafficking), and in another case, a woman was arrested and accused of operating four massage parlors and using them as fronts for prostitution.

In order to identify and recover victims, in addition to preventing the sex trafficking of adults and children, Miami law enforcement have concluded that investigations cannot simply target traffickers and prostituted women– they must also aim to curtail the underlying demand for commercial sex. The Miami Police Department and Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Department have constructed an aggressive and multi-pronged approach to identify and apprehend sex buyers. Officers were among the first in the nation to implement frequent and large-scale street-level reverse stings in the early 1970s.

Reverse Stings:

Operations are now routinely conducted, using teams of undercover female officers as decoys. As men attempt to solicit sex from the women, they are arrested by a backup team. For example, in April, 2012, the MDCPD conducted a series of street-level reverse stings known cumulatively as “Operation Dear John.” Police, utilizing several undercover female officers as decoys, arrested 22 male sex buyers in a single block. The Miami-Dade State Attorney, Katherine Fernandez Rundle said that the operation was a joint effort designed to put pressure on sex buyers, “feeding the bedrock of human trafficking.” The men’s names and other identifying information were not made public. In January, 2022, an undercover prostitution sting involving officers from the Miami and Coral Gables police departments netted a former Miami-Dade County prosecutor. The suspect approached two undercover police officers shortly before midnight at 44th Avenue and Eighth Street, and he agreed to pay $30 for a sex act at a nearby hotel. A spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office said the man was no longer an employee there when he was arrested.  The sex buyer faced a misdemeanor charge of offering to commit prostitution; he was released on a $500 bond and his arraignment hearing was scheduled for the following month.

In addition to local, county, and state level efforts, Miami was one of the first 13 cities assigned an “Innocence Lost” task force. “Innocence Lost,” is a federal initiative to combat sex crimes against children through domestic sex trafficking or child prostitution operated by the FBI and the Justice Department. In 2008, there were a total of 23 task forces set up in cities around the country. Miami was one of the first cities assigned a task force due to the city having “one of the highest levels of juvenile prostitution in the country,” said Sgt. Kelly Sullivan of the Metro Dade Police Department Innocence Lost Vice Task Force. The FBI works with local law enforcement to plan stings targeting pimps/sex traffickers and to rescue minors, but they also conduct “prostitution reversal stings” targeting the sex buyers. Operations consist of numerous tactics, one being street-level reverse stings where decoy officers and a backup team arrest sex buyers once potential buyers state a price and sexual act. The sex buyers are then brought into the station to be booked and swabbed for DNA. “One of the main purposes of this detail is to get DNA on file from a lot of these sexual predators,” said Lt. Steve Czyzewski, of the Miami-Dade Police Department. “It’s a real effective crime-fighting tool.”

Web-Based Reverse Stings:

In addition to street-level reverse stings, the Miami-Dade vice squad conducts web-based reverse stings where officers search previously targeted websites and escort services. These stings are aimed at rescuing underage victims of sex trafficking, their pimps/sex traffickers, in addition to sex buyers. Upon arrest, sex buyers, who are not convicted for sex trafficking or sex trafficking of a minor and are first-time offenders, are eligible to enter a “John School,” whereupon successful completion, charges are dismissed. Additionally, in 2018, FBI agents along with county officials from Miami-Dade County and Broward County successfully rescued four teenage girls from alleged sex traffickers during Super Bowl LIV week in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Officials arranged an undercover meeting at a local hotel for after finding an online prostitution ad on the Skip The Games site. The prostituted woman officials met at the local hotel assisted in the rescue of four teenage girls who had been recruited and groomed on Facebook by the sex traffickers. The FBI reported that the victims were being sex trafficked online, with one victim appearing in over 250 online ads in Connecticut, Texas and Florida. Sex traffickers/pimps, particularly those arrested for cases involving minors are not eligible for John School programs.

Arrest of Sex Buyer; Identity Disclosure; Employment Loss:

In May, 2022, a former Miami Beach substitute teacher was arrested after police learned of allegations of him giving female students drugs for cash and sexual favors. The man had been fired by Miami-Dade County Public Schools in 2018 after an investigation showed he had sent inappropriate messages to students on social media. He had used Snapchat to sell marijuana, marijuana cards, nicotine and vape pens to students at Nautilus Middle School, and accepted cash or sexual favors as payment, according to WPLG. It was reported the offender sent and received sexual photos and videos from students. At least one 12-year-old was sexually battered, and other victims were between 11 and 14 years old. Law enforcement only became aware of the allegations in March, 2022, and arrested the man on charges of using a computer to arrange travel to meet a minor, human trafficking, unlawful use of a communications device, prohibited computer services involving a child, contributing to the delinquency of a child, providing nicotine to someone under 21 and selling nicotine to minors charges. The man was taken to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on no bond.

Miami-Dade County John School:

In 2008 a news report mentioned that many of the men arrested in reverse stings in Miami attended a john school program.  In 2018, The Office of the State Attorney introduced Miami-Dade County introduced a pre-trial diversion (PTD) program for non-violent first-time offenders facing misdemeanor prostitution charges. The program, called Demand More, is the first of its kind for Miami- Dade County, and seeks to educate those charged with these types of misdemeanor violations about the dangers and realities associated with prostitution and human trafficking.

Demand More has two tracks: one for prostituted persons and one for sex buyers. For prostituted persons, it provides counseling and ancillary services to assist them in overcoming the challenges that have kept them in the cycle of prostitution. For sex buyers, it exposes them to their role in the perpetration of prostitution and the horrors of human trafficking. Overall the program aims at reducing demand for prostitution and sex trafficking through educational services for both prostituted persons and sex buyers in Miami-Dade County.

Neighborhood Action:

Communities in the City of Miami have been actively pursuing avenues to eradicate prostitution from their neighborhoods for decades. For example, in 1993, a group of neighbors who lived along Biscayne Boulevard in Miami, an area well-known for issues of prostitution, purchased and printed a billboard that read,

“Beware: If you are arrested for prostitution activity between 36th and 87th streets, your name and address will be placed on a Biscayne Boulevard billboard soon. The Communities of the Northeast are watching you.”

In addition to publishing the names of arrested sex buyers, their addresses were also planned to be included to avoid harming innocent people with common names. Neighbors hoped that this would deter sex buyers and reduce the demand for commercial sex and sex trafficking in their communities. In 2020, residents of the Flagami neighborhood, an area well-known for issues regarding prostitution and other illicit activities, began to take action to deter people from engaging in prostitution-related activities within the neighborhood. Residents reported having emailed the City of Miami numerous times without receiving a response. After a local news source spoke with concerned residents of the Flagami, the news source reached out to District 4 Commissioner Manolo Reyes in attempts to gather more insight into who the residents need to contact in order to have their concerns heard and alleviated. Commissioner Manolo Reyes commented, “They want to stop the traffic, but there’s a process. I welcome that process. I welcome that they start the process.” The process in which Commissioner Reyes is referring to, requires the neighbors to sign a petition to demonstrate that concerns are community-wide concerns, then a traffic study would have to be conducted, and then finally neighbors would have to vote on whether or not to block certain avenues. Residents of Flagami have reported being flashed, witnesses public sex acts, and stepping on used condoms. Residents welcome the challenge and have already started the process of reaching out to others to sign a petition.

Auto Seizure:

Once apprehended, police may also have their vehicles seized and impounded, depending upon the circumstances of the arrest. City of Miami Ordinance #11445 and City of Miami Code, Sections 42-121 and 42-122 permits the Miami Police Department to impound vehicles utilized in soliciting prostitution and assesses a $1000.00 fine. The Miami Police Department reported that in 2003, under the Vehicle Impoundment Program, 50 vehicles were seized. In 2008, the city reported having accumulated $12 million dollars in impoundment fees since the ordinance passed in 1997.

SOAP (Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution):

Arrested sex buyers may be served with SOAP (Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution) orders, barring them from reentering four highly trafficked areas of the cities identified by a city ordinance as “Prostitution Zones”. For example, the Prostitution Mapping Program was first implemented in the greater Miami area in 2000, and between January and July of the same year, 274 prostitution arrests were made in South Beach, Miami, FL. In the prior year, 334 arrests were made in the entire region. In 2003, MPD reported that as a result of the Prostitution Mapping Program 30 arrests for prostitution and 23 convictions were made in the City of Miami that year. In addition, 66 arrests were made with the weekly crime abatement details. Since the implementation of mapping and weekly crime abatement details in 2003, the Miami Police Department reported prostitution to have significantly decreased. While the duration of the order may vary depending upon the individual’s prior arrest record, the majority of SOAP orders place offenders on probation for three to six months.

Identity Disclosure:

To further deter other would-be sex buyers, police release arrested men’s’ names to the public. The city’s shaming policy has been quite purposeful at times, e.g., in addition to encouraging media outlets to distribute arrestees’ names, city law enforcement began running the men’s names (only those who were convicted) on a local TV access program in the early 1990s. The decision to release the men’s names was the result of actions to “obliterate the demand,” in order to “obliterate prostitution.”