Today’s presentation was given by Detective Sergeant, Ben Lytle of the Medford Police Department. He shared local enforcement efforts to mitigate the increase in both labor and sex trafficking. With notable increases in activities when Marijuana was legalized, and the influx of organized crime penetrated our communities. Detective shared stories of the collaborative work with other agencies across the state to fight the issues surrounding human trafficking.
He said despite the focus on saving victims they often chose to stay in the trafficking situations out of fear, addiction, or other barriers. He noted that the issue has to be tackled from all angles as it is a moving target and often those involved shift in and out of areas which increase investigation time and efforts. He encouraged us all to call when we suspect a trafficking situation as they rely on those calls to quickly catch participants before they move on.