Follow The Money: The Economics of Human Trafficking - What Policing “Rescue” Really Costs

January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month - a season of press conferences, podium speeches, and dramatic headlines announcing “rescues.” Each year, cities roll out task forces, photo ops, and arrest tallies meant to signal decisive action.

What rarely makes the news is the price tag behind these operations - or how little of that spending actually results in accountability for traffickers or safety for those most at risk. Before a single case reaches a courtroom, a trafficking sting has already consumed vast public resources.

This post follows the first stage of that money trail: what law enforcement spends to manufacture a “rescue.”

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What the 2022 Numbers Actually Tell Us

National crime data on prostitution and trafficking in the United States is fragmented by design. Federal systems track arrests, charges, and prosecutions, not comprehensive convictions, and because prostitution enforcement is handled almost entirely at the state and local level, there is no single national count of convictions for consensual adult sex work.

That absence alone should raise red flags - but the data we do have is revealing.

In 2022, 1,656 people were federally prosecuted for human trafficking offenses, with 1,118 federal convictions. Nearly half of federal defendants (523 of 1,070) were charged with sexual exploitation or abuse of children, not adult sex trafficking. Meanwhile, at the state and local level, enforcement tells a very different story: an estimated 80,000–100,000 people are arrested each year for prostitution-related offenses, while only 825 state prison admissions for human trafficking were recorded across 47 states in 2022.

Even when trafficking is officially reported, outcomes are thin. Law enforcement agencies documented roughly 2,950 trafficking incidents in 2022 - 81% labeled sex trafficking - yet about two-thirds never resulted in an arrest or clearance, meaning no prosecution at all. Arrests are highly visible. Convictions are rare. And the categories themselves routinely collapse consensual sex work, coercion, labor exploitation, and child abuse into a single statistical bucket, making meaningful analysis nearly impossible using official numbers alone.

This statistical fog - maintained through arrest-based metrics and opaque reporting - creates ideal conditions for carceral “rescue” narratives to flourish without accountability from agencies like the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The Cost Behind the Podium

When police announce a “major human trafficking bust,” the headlines focus on arrests and alleged rescues. What’s missing is the other number: cost. Behind every press release is a taxpayer-funded operation that resembles a small military deployment - planning meetings, multi-agency coordination, surveillance details, undercover operations, decoy locations, digital forensics, equipment rentals, vehicles and fuel, command staff, and a polished media rollout.

For a single five-day sting, these front-end policing costs alone routinely reach hundreds of thousands of dollars. And for all that spending, very few trafficking victims are identified. The overwhelming majority of people arrested are consensual adult sex workers or their clients.

A History of Bad Math

This fiscal absurdity is not new. In the 1970s, San Francisco organizer Margo St. James, founder of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), was already exposing the cost-benefit failure of vice policing. In 1977, San Francisco spent over $2 million to arrest, prosecute, and jail 2,938 people on prostitution charges - about $680 per arrest at the time (roughly $3,570 today). Her assessment remains painfully relevant:

“If you think these women are expensive, you should see what the men who arrest them cost.”

Fifty years later, the math has only gotten uglier.

The Hidden Ledger of a “Rescue”

Modern trafficking stings are logistical spectacles. While the public sees handcuffs and podiums, the real billable hours pile up elsewhere:

• Officer labor & overtime: weeks of planning, surveillance, undercover work, and arrests

• Fleet & fuel: multi-car operations across jurisdictions

• Equipment & tech: recording devices, decoy rentals, digital forensics

• Command & supervision: task-force leadership, briefings, coordination

• Media operations: public information officers, press kits, staged announcements

These are law enforcement costs only. They do not include prosecutors, public defenders, court staff, interpreters, probation, or jail intake - the far larger price tag that comes after the handcuffs.

Operation Cross Country: Big Optics, Opaque Budgets

Each summer, the FBI’s Operation Cross Country (OCC) mobilizes hundreds of agencies for a nationwide “human trafficking rescue” sweep. Despite more than a decade of operations and hundreds of participating agencies, the FBI has never published a comprehensive public accounting of OCC’s costs or arrest breakdowns.

What we know comes from independent aggregation of local reports - and the pattern is consistent. Past OCC iterations show that the majority of arrests involve consensual adult prostitution, not trafficking. Child exploitation cases are highlighted in national press releases, while adult arrests are often omitted entirely.

If the outcomes and costs were defensible, they would be transparent. The absence of data is itself a data point.

What It Costs to “Save” 50 People

Using conservative estimates for a five-day, 50-arrest sting - law enforcement only:

• Officer labor & overtime: ≈ $220,000

• Vehicles, fuel, fleet maintenance: ≈ $20,000

• Equipment & tech: ≈ $50,000

• Command & supervision: ≈ $30,000

• Media coordination: ≈ $5,000

Subtotal (law enforcement only): ≈ $325,000

That’s roughly $6,500 per arrest, before courts, jails, or “rescue” programs enter the picture.

Opportunity Cost Is the Real Story

Every hour poured into vice stings is an hour not spent investigating missing persons, sexual assault, or violent crime. When officers are chasing escorts, they are not pursuing predators. From a fiscal, ethical, and public-safety standpoint, this is a losing trade.

Why This Matters

When people ask, “Why decriminalize sex work?” this is part of the answer. Criminalization is not just harmful - it is fiscally irrational. For the cost of a single sting, communities could fund housing, outreach, healthcare, and survivor-led services that actually prevent exploitation.

Operation Cross Country is not a public safety success story. It is a budgetary black hole masquerading as compassion.

The Bottom Line

If we are serious about addressing exploitation, we must stop funding raids and start funding rights. Redirect public dollars away from arrest pipelines and toward sex worker–led organizations that build safety, stability, and trust. Because no amount of money spent on stings can buy what solidarity creates for free: real safety, real accountability, and real freedom.