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According to Zaz Hollander, reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, police in Wasila, Alaska used funds allocated for fighting child-sex trafficking to… round up adult customers who answered ads where police officers pretended to be… adult prostitutes.

The late October bust resulted in the arrests of 10 men, plus the seizure of more than $2,100 in cash and 10 cell phones, police say. The sting, conducted by Palmer and Wasilla police with help from the FBI and Anchorage’s vice squad, was associated with a larger federal strategy called Operation Cross Country that targets child prostitutes and people who sell children into slavery.

The Mat-Su operation turned up neither, said Palmer police Detective Sgt. Kelly Turney. Instead, Turney said, the arrests represented the beginning of “us being able to work the issue”— arresting low-level johns to find pimps for adult prostitutes who may also be trafficking young girls.

Police knew prostitution happened here, but they didn’t know to what extent. The sting was one way to figure that out.

Police placed ads on Craigslist and other places. Turney wouldn’t describe the ad, but did say it made no reference to child prostitution.

Read all about it here.

Not to seem too petty or anything here but WTF? Whatever you think of sex trafficking, and whatever you think of sexual exploitation of minors, and however seriously you take ‘wingnut allegations that millions of American children are trafficked for sex, you’d sort of expect funds used to fight child-sex trafficking would be used to fight child-sex trafficking!

As one dour-sounding Alaskan “complete energy manipulation” provider (reiki massage, guided meditation, “ancient hot stone body work,” “some [presumably customer] nudity involved”) in Hollander’s article put it “If you advertise in the paper for whatever service and you’ve got grownups coming to see you, you think they’ve got child abductees in their car?”

I think that’s about right: it sounds like, you know, exactly the sort of thing you’d do if you didn’t actually take the problem at all seriously but you saw a way to featherbed your local budget with Federal dollars.

This is one of those things I find really frustrating. Because it relies so heavily on paradigms of sexual scarcity and transactional heterosexuality I don’t have much patience with prostitution. And because I think the transitory benefits to adults don’t merit the sometimes lifelong consequences for children I’m intolerant of sexual exploitation of minors. And don’t even get me started on commerce in coerced or conscripted people. But Zeus on Zanzibar I hate it when people pretend there’s no difference between the three. And so I’ve got nothing but contempt for the boneheads who pulled this stunt in Wasila, or for anyone who thinks it was just a swell idea.

Hollander says the community reaction isn’t going down well for the Wasila’s police chief

“It’s a little disheartening when you actually try to do something good and the majority of people think you’re wasting money, wasting time, why aren’t you out doing something bigger?” said Palmer police Commander Tom Remaley.

“It’s almost like you can’t win.”

See, this is what’s frustrating about it. If he was serious about investigating prostituted children or trafficked adults he wouldn’t be pulling stunts like this. That he did pull this stunt suggests he actually doesn’t take it seriously. He actually could win, you know. He just can’t do it that way.

(Via Google Alert on keyword “sex trafficking”)