Wayne County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of Michigan with a population of roughly 1.8 million residents. Its county seat and largest city is Detroit, MI. Wayne County encompasses the city of Detroit and its surrounding suburbs and unincorporated areas. The area’s economy has been troubled for many years, and crime rates have been high. Prostitution and sex trafficking have been persistent and serious problems in the county for decades. Violence among those involved in the local sex trade has also been widespread and has included at least one serial killer, that targeted women in prostitution.

To combat the demand that drives all sex trafficking, officials within the county have implemented tactics focusing on deterring sex buyers and holding them accountable. Wayne County and the city of Detroit have been among the U.S. sites most aggressive about conducting reverse stings and – in particular – seizing vehicles of arrested sex buyers and charging high fees and fines to recover them.

Detroit is one of the most aggressive cities in the United States when it comes to arresting sex buyers, and Wayne County assists the city by administering the auto seizure program. Detroit was among the first to conduct reverse stings, beginning in 1970. From the 1990s through to the present, Detroit has averaged several thousand arrests of sex buyers per year.  In addition to the volume of arrests, the city and its surrounding county are noteworthy for their application of auto seizures, and their associated fees and fines, to arrested sex buyers.

Auto Seizure Program

In Detroit and Wayne County, MI (as well as Flint), vehicles used in the commission of a crime may be seized, and retrieved after paying a fine, plus towing and storage fees.  This tactic has been applied to arrested sex buyers since 1988 in Detroit and Wayne County. The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office operates the Vehicle Seizure Program.  To retrieve vehicles, arrestees must provide:

• Notice of Seizure
• Valid driver’s license or state ID
• Vehicle registration or vehicle title
• Money Order or Cashier’s Check – NO cash or personal checks

First-time offenders must pay $900 to retrieve their vehicles. The penalty increases to $1,800 for second offenses.  This generates substantial revenue, potentially enough to fully fund the police operations; resulting in arresting sex buyers, assuming that the typical yields of arrests occur for each reverse sting. According to a report from 1997, police seized 3,198 vehicles of men arrested for buying sex. At that time, the penalties were lower: $650 for a 1^st offense and $1,300 for a 2^nd. Over 2,000 of the arrestees paid the first offense fine of $650, and over 400 paid the second offense fine of $1,300. Thirty-six cases were contested, and the police department prevailed in 31 of those cases and collected the fines. The rest of the vehicles were either returned to their owners or abandoned.   Approximately $1.36 million was generated in vehicle seizure fines, paid by the arrested sex buyers. Towing and impound storage fees are paid by the sex buyers, in addition to the $900 (or larger) fines. This way police did not need to use their fine revenue to reimburse towing companies or storage facilities.

We do not have data to corroborate how many reverse stings led to the 3,200 arrests in 1997, the precise number of officers deployed, nor how many hours were spent in the operations. However, we have data from Detroit over a longer timeframe, that can be used for estimation. The average reverse sting in Detroit lasts eight hours, uses teams involving one decoy, seven support officers, and generally produces seven arrests. Applying these averages to the 1997 data, we can estimate that it required about 440 reverse sting teams, working eight-hour operations to make the arrests. If the average cost of a reverse sting was $3,000 ($1,900 for 64 hours of direct labor, and $1,000 for indirect costs), then the police department expended about $1.32 million in conducting reverse stings. There are expenses incurred by courts after the point of arrest, but courts typically impose a $500 fine and court fees that should address – at least partially – those expenses.

While the assumptions underlying these estimates may be imprecise and actual expenditures can vary, the general picture that emerges is that vehicle seizure fines and court fees appear to cover what it costs to arrest and process sex buyers in Detroit.  Note that this cannot be generalized to most other cities, since few impose such heavy fines and fees. But it does illustrate how fines and fees can be used to either fully cover or help to defray the costs of reverse stings, if the fines and fees are set at a sufficiently high level, and the courts follow through on imposing them and collecting the revenue.