By Melinda Anne Roberts
Correspondent
GREEN BAY – The common council learned about human trafficking issues in Green Bay at its Tuesday, March 19, meeting, as requested by Common Council President and District 10 Alderman Mark Steuer.
“Human trafficking is a big issue across the country,” said Chief of Police Andrew Smith. “It’s present in every city, probably in every small town as well, and Green Bay’s no exception.”
Smith said he wants people to be assured the Green Bay Police Department has detectives who are working to combat this issue.
Smith said Detective Craig Pakkala is the department’s lead in these cases, following them closely.
Pakkala works with law enforcement officers from the Brown County Sheriff’s Department and also from the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation.
“The thing about human trafficking is that in the past we looked at just prostitution,” said Smith. “Thinking in law enforcement has evolved over the past 20 years and now we look at it as these are true victims. These are people that are being exploited.”
The women are being exploited for mainly two reasons, for sex or for labor.
“We don’t see the labor part here in Wisconsin,” said Smith, “and certainly not in Green Bay that I’ve come across. But we do see women get brought here for the purpose of sex trafficking.”
He said the women come generally from Milwaukee and sometimes from Chicago. he said.
A pimp takes the women, “often addicted to drugs and usually under age and will transport them up here for the purposes of sex,” Smith said.
Circuits are run in other states where the pimp will run the women through a variety of cities, but what occurs in Green Bay are more isolated cases, Smith said.
He said most of the trafficking occurs as a result of things that happen on the internet.
“(Pakkala) pays very close attention to that,” said Smith, “and we also have a detective that works on internet crimes against children – the people that troll the internet looking for young children to find, meet up, and go have liaisons with. So we’re on top of that as well.”
The department also does stings where it puts an ad out to catch Johns that come in to pay for sex with money, Smith said.
Smith said the department also works with several area non-profits and social services agencies to try and get the women that are involved out of the life and to get them into a safe spot.
“Detective Pakkala is fantastic,” Smith said. “He’s tireless on this. He knows a lot of the women that get involved in this. He’s able to convince some of them to get out, tracks the rest of them, gets to know them and know what their activities are, and does everything he can to try and resolve it.”
Smith said the police department also closely watches area spas and massage parlors for sex trafficking.