InvestigateWest, July 2024
The choice is always the same, though not always explicit: Obey me or go to jail. Jay, a survivor of human trafficking in Boise, said she’s faced this choice from traffickers who want control over her body. From police officers who want information about her abusers. From judges who order her to follow strict probation requirements. From service providers who make a living off of survivors like her. It’s not an empty threat.
When she stopped obeying her trafficker last year — refusing to do his laundry, mow his lawn, buy groceries or do his job for him — she said he planted drugs in her bedroom, knowing it would violate her probation conditions. When a probation officer later found methamphetamine and marijuana in her bedroom, a Boise police officer arrested her on felony and misdemeanor drug charges, according to the probable cause affidavit. It didn’t matter that her probation notes identified her as a human trafficking victim, or that she’d been getting support from a local anti-trafficking organization since at least 2021 with her probation officer’s knowledge. She went to jail, and her trafficker faced no consequences.
