Sex Trafficking in Los Angeles: What the New York Times Coverage Avoids

Two weeks ago, the New York Times Magazine published an incredible feature about the world of sex traffickers, their victims, and police and nonprofits’ work to combat trafficking on Los Angeles’ Figueroa Avenue near the University of Southern California. It is an excellent piece highlighting a truly awful consequence of Democratic soft-on-crime, “equity”-motivated criminal-justice policies. Yet throughout its compelling, infuriating, and heartbreaking narrative, Times health reporter Emily Baumgaertner Nunn left untouched two third rails within the dynamics of sex trafficking: abortion and illegal immigration.

Let me begin with praise for the piece, which was relatively courageous for the Times to publish, given their usual, hyper-left-wing standards. The narrative follows three central characters: a 19-year-old sex trafficking victim who repeatedly gets into and out of situations of horrific abuse; a heroic 27-year-old female police officer who posed as a prostitute in an effort, alongside her team of vice officers, to take down traffickers; and a saintly nonprofit worker who never gives up in her work to save victims from lives of abuse and coercion. Police are presented as the clear good gals and good guys in the story, and their efforts to detain and thereby save victims of sex trafficking received the valiant framing they deserve.

JG

About the Author

John Gerardi

John Gerardi is the executive director of Right to Life of Central California in Fresno. A lawyer and the founding CEO and current development director of the Obria Medical Clinics of Central California, he hosts the radio shows and podcasts The John Gerardi Show and Right to Life Radio.

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Two weeks ago, the New York Times Magazine published an incredible feature about the world of sex traffickers, their victims, and police and nonprofits’ work to combat trafficking on Los Angeles’ Figueroa Avenue near the University of Southern California. It is an excellent piece highlighting a truly awful consequence of Democratic soft-on-crime, “equity”-motivated criminal-justice policies. Yet throughout its compelling, infuriating, and heartbreaking narrative, Times health reporter Emily Baumgaertner Nunn left untouched two third rails within the dynamics of sex trafficking: abortion and illegal immigration.

Let me begin with praise for the piece, which was relatively courageous for the Times to publish, given their usual, hyper-left-wing standards. The narrative follows three central characters: a 19-year-old sex trafficking victim who repeatedly gets into and out of situations of horrific abuse; a heroic 27-year-old female police officer who posed as a prostitute in an effort, alongside her team of vice officers, to take down traffickers; and a saintly nonprofit worker who never gives up in her work to save victims from lives of abuse and coercion. Police are presented as the clear good gals and good guys in the story, and their efforts to detain and thereby save victims of sex trafficking received the valiant framing they deserve.