By Leiscehn Stelter
InPublicSafety.com
John Meekins has been a corrections officer in Florida for more than nine years. Throughout his career, he has often heard female inmates talk about being prostituted and held captive by pimps—a situation he initially considered a consequence for many drug abusers.
However, he started asking more questions and soon discovered many of these women are victims of human trafficking. With further inquiry, he also learned about a network of female prisoners who are actively recruiting inmates on behalf of outside pimps.
How Pimps Are Reaching Inside Prison Walls
Meekins discovered that pimps are using these inside recruiters to identify vulnerable women who are getting out of jail soon. Much of the communication between pimps and recruiters comes right through the prison mailroom. He has read dozens of letters written by pimps to their recruiters specifying how many women they must recruit and how much they will be paid for their services.
After women are recruited, pimps start personal conversations with them (often via mail) offering to take care of them when they are released. The pimps send them money as an act of good faith and then arrange to pick them up.
Full story: How Pimps Are Recruiting Vulnerable Female Prisoners
