Dallas Police arrested more than two dozen men accused of soliciting prostitution as part of a targeted enforcement this week.
It’s part of an on-going targeted effort by DPD to combat the demand of people seeking to pay for sex in Northwest Dallas.
“We’re being proactive,” Kristin Lowman with DPD said. “We’ve listened to the community, to business owners, that are being affected by this type of crime.”
The Dallas Police Department Special Investigation Division worked in an area near Walnut Hill Ln just east of Interstate 35, making 30 arrests of men soliciting prostitution on March 27. In addition, detectives seized five guns and $3400 in cash.
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
It comes after a similar enforcement three weeks earlier that netted another 30 arrests, along with four handguns, two vehicles, and $70,000.
Jan Langbein, CEO of Dallas-based Genesis Women’s Shelter and Support, says it’s important that enforcement efforts target the demand side of prostitution and not the women involved.
“I believe it sends a message loudly and clearly that buying people is against the law,” Langbein said.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
“The perpetrators of these crimes are not the women and girls who have been sold; it is those who are selling and those who are buying.”
Langbein adds the most recent operations are informed about targeting the men seeking sex, and not who advocates say are the women trafficked into sex work through force, fraud, and coercion, including many who are under the age of 18.
Dallas Police said enforcement efforts will continue in the area.
“It is not going to be accepted within our city,” Lowman said.
“We will be out there, we will be patrolling, doing different operations in order to curb the problem.”
