Follow The Money: The Economics of a “Human Trafficking” Sting - The Criminal Justice Spreadsheet

Alex Andrews
15 hours ago
4 min read

As Human Trafficking Awareness Month continues, conversations often center on awareness campaigns and sensationalized narratives about “saving victims,” But understanding the systemic costs reveals how these efforts strain public resources and divert attention from practical solutions. Last week, we examined the substantial cost of stings to police departments, highlighting the need to question the actual value of these investments.

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The Criminal Justice Tab: What Happens After the Arrest

When we broke down the law enforcement side of a “human trafficking sting” last week - the overtime, the fleets of vehicles, the surveillance technology, the interagency task forces, and the media choreography that transforms a vice operation into a PR spectacle - we only talked about the cost to Law Enforcement.

But the handcuffs are only the down payment. The real costs begin after the arrest, when every person swept up in a sting becomes a case file moving through the criminal justice system. Police departments get their headlines upfront, but prosecutors, public defenders, courts, and probation offices inherit the bill - and taxpayers foot it. For cities that insist these stings are a wise investment, this is where their calculations collapse entirely, which should concern policymakers about systemic sustainability and fairness.

The Prosecutor’s Bill

Every arrest entails charging decisions, filings, evidence review, meetings, and court appearances, collectively imposing high costs on prosecutors. Even for low-level misdemeanors like prostitution or loitering, prosecutors spend paid hours on cases that rarely go to trial but still demand substantial staff time. RAND estimates misdemeanor cases cost thousands of dollars per person, and Baltimore’s study found prosecuting a single misdemeanor drug case costs between $1,642 and $9,554 - costs that multiply rapidly with multiple arrests, burdening the system with cases that often do not involve trafficking.

The Public Defender’s Burden

Most people arrested in stings cannot afford private counsel, forcing public defenders to absorb the caseload. Each client requires intake, investigation, negotiation, and court appearances, even for minor charges. Public defender offices are chronically underfunded, and each additional case adds to their backlog. A single multi-agency sting can impose the equivalent of weeks of legal work on public defense teams without additional funding, thereby exposing the hidden economic burden on the public system.

The Court System’s Quiet Subsidy

Court time is not free. Each case requires clerks to process filings, judges to review motions and conduct hearings, bailiffs and interpreters to staff courtrooms, and multiple appearances as cases are continued or rescheduled. Misdemeanor prostitution cases often require three to five court dates, consuming staff and judicial labor throughout the courthouse ecosystem. Judges routinely express frustration that these cases waste precious court hours that could be devoted to assaults, domestic violence, or other urgent matters.

Probation, Diversion, and “John Schools”

After sentencing - which is often the result of a plea deal - the costs continue. Probation imposes monitoring obligations, drug testing, fees, and compliance checks that create ongoing expenses for counties, while poverty, unstable housing, and lack of transportation frequently set people up to fail.

Diversion programs, often marketed as humane alternatives to incarceration, come with financial strings attached: participants are required to pay fees, typically ranging from $300 to $1,500, while counties subsidize administrative overhead. These programs have no measurable impact on reducing trafficking or exploitation. Diversion is framed as rehabilitation, but economically it functions as a cost-shifting mechanism - courts save money while defendants pay.

The Real Price Tag of a Sting After Arrest

When we break down the numbers, the financial impact becomes stark. Prosecution costs range from $1,500 to $8,000 per person; public defense costs range from $800 to $3,000; court operations costs range from $500 to $2,500; and probation or diversion fees range from $300 to $1,500. The estimated total ranges from $3,100 to $15,000 per person, or from $155,000 to $750,000 for a 50-person sting. This is in addition to the $300,000-plus in law enforcement costs calculated in Week 1. In other words, after the police finish spending, the courts start spending.

What We Get for the Money: A Whole Lot of Nothing

What do cities get for this investment? Not a decrease in trafficking. Not the dismantling of organized crime. Not meaningful support for victims. Not improved community safety. Instead, they receive dockets filled with misdemeanor cases, overburdened courts, more people placed on probation, higher jail intake, and budgets drained for political theater. No matter how police or politicians spin it, the criminal justice system does not benefit from stings; it buckles under them.

This should raise questions about the effectiveness and justice of current approaches.

The Opportunity Cost: What Could This Money Have Funded?

And the opportunity cost is enormous. Instead of spending $500,000 to $1.4 million per sting on arrests and prosecutions, cities could fund a year of rental assistance for 60–80 people, employ a full-time team of trauma-informed counselors, sustain peer-led reentry programs for people returning from incarceration, support drop-in centers and harm-reduction outreach, or provide court navigators and expungement clinics. Every dollar spent punishing consensual adult sexual activity is a dollar not spent preventing violence or supporting survivors. This should motivate advocates and policymakers to reconsider how resources are allocated for more impactful community support.

Why It Matters

If Week 1 showed that stings are a law enforcement money pit, Week 2 makes it clear that the criminal justice system becomes the second drain in the bathtub. The further a sting moves from “arrest” to “prosecution,” the more money the public loses, with no measurable gains in safety, justice, or community well-being.

This system is expensive because it is designed to be. It is ineffective because it targets the wrong people.

Next Week: Who Profits from “Rescue”?

We’ll follow the money into the nonprofit sector - from faith-based shelters to publicly funded programs - and examine the financial ecosystem that grows around criminalization.