Report: Sex traffickers given leniency, less jail time

PHOENIX — Authors of a new study on sex trafficking suggest child predators could and should be receiving tougher penalties, but many are not even being charged with state sex trafficking charges.

“They are being offered lesser crimes, leniency or deferment, which allows them to wipe the record clean, later,” said Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, director of the Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research at Arizona State University. “[They] must have jail time. We should be able to protect our community and kids. We need to know that our neighbor is trying to buy sex from children by putting the offender on a sex offender registry.”