Recent undercover operations publicized by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, including the multi-day “Polk Around & Find Out II” effort that produced hundreds of arrests, illustrate a recurring pattern in American vice enforcement. The overwhelming majority of those arrested face charges related to soliciting or offering consensual adult sexual services for money. A much smaller number involve actual attempts to meet minors, and even fewer are identified as possible human trafficking victims after screening by groups such as One More Child.
In one recent operation, authorities reported roughly 239 arrests tied to prostitution offenses (buyers and sellers) versus about 31 for traveling to meet a minor, with partner organizations identifying around 11 possible trafficking victims after screening more than 90 individuals. Similar ratios have appeared in prior Polk County operations. These are not anomalies; they are the predictable result of criminalizing a voluntary exchange between adults.
The Libertarian Party of Wisconsin holds that individuals own their bodies and that government has no legitimate authority to prohibit peaceful, consensual activity. Our platform explicitly favors the repeal of all laws creating “crimes” without victims. Adult consensual sex work falls squarely in that category. Force, fraud, coercion, and the exploitation of minors are already serious crimes, and should remain so. Conflating the two simply expands the net to capture people who have harmed no one.
When police resources, overtime, hotel rooms, and undercover personnel are devoted to arranging and arresting adults for private, voluntary transactions, those same resources are unavailable for investigating actual predators and traffickers. The black market conditions created by prohibition make genuine trafficking harder to detect and give actual victims strong incentives to avoid police. Decriminalizing adult consensual sex work would allow sex workers to report abuse or coercion without risking their own arrest, reduce the criminal records and stigma that trap people in the trade, and free law enforcement to focus on the non-consensual offenses everyone agrees are wrong.
The oldest profession is not going away. The question is whether the state will continue to manufacture “victims” out of consenting adults while claiming progress against trafficking, or whether Wisconsin will adopt the evidence-based, liberty respecting approach of treating adults as adults and reserving criminal law for those who initiate force or fraud.
For more information or to become involved, contact the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin at press@lpwi.org.
