This story first appeared on The LA Local.
The Los Angeles Police Department plans to install 18 cameras along Western Avenue between Olympic and Santa Monica boulevards by the end of the year, part of a broader effort to address human trafficking activity — but which sex worker advocates fear will lead to increased surveillance and pushing them into dangerous situations.
The plan comes on the heels of officials launching a citywide task force earlier this year to disrupt sex trafficking of women and minors along the corridor. Police say they will target traffickers and not adult sex workers, but it’s unclear how officers will access the footage and how it will be used in the law enforcement operation.
At the March 9 meeting of the Wilshire Center-Koreatown Neighborhood Council, LAPD Officer Lucy Bermudez said the department is working toward deploying the cameras before year’s end.
“The goal is for someone to monitor these cameras at any given time,” Bermudez said, “and get plates and make arrests of individuals taking advantage of these women.”
The planned camera network would cover a stretch of Western Avenue that runs through LAPD’s Olympic and Hollywood divisions, an area police say has seen ongoing sex trafficking activity, including near schools and residential neighborhoods.
LAPD Cpt. Rachel Rodriguez, who oversees the Olympic Division, declined to answer questions about the system, including the vendor, cost or how the cameras would operate.
But she was clear that the cameras won’t be Flock cameras, and that any data collected would remain within LAPD and wouldn’t be broadly shared. The company Flock Safety operate license plate readers, surveillance cameras and gunfire locator systems for law enforcement agencies across the country.
The LAPD’s cameras along Western Avenue would be “something entirely different,” Rodriguez said, and part of a pilot program. But the department will not release any additional information until the contracts are finalized.
Some local residents and advocates say the added surveillance could have unintended consequences for vulnerable women.
Soma Snakeoil, co-founder and executive director of The Sidewalk Project, a street-based harm reduction organization, said that targeting traffickers through surveillance also means adult sex workers are being looked at by police.
“This creates less safety for sex workers, especially migrant sex workers,” she said. “We are very much against that surveillance apparatus. They really want to make certain bodies hypervisible to the state. We’re concerned about this on a deeper systemic level than personal privacy.”
Snakeoil added efforts like this often push sex workers out of one area into another without addressing the underlying issues, like housing instability.
During a community meeting last month, city officials said the police crackdown on human trafficking along the Figueroa Street corridor in South L.A. may have pushed activity into nearby neighborhoods.
“Displacement of sex workers is part of preparing for the [Olympic] Games,” she said. “If we really cared about people, we would increase housing, we would increase basic income. Instead, we’re creating expensive task forces and expensive cameras that are about surveilling people.”
LAPD officials say the cameras are part of a broader strategy to address concerns raised by residents and to prevent human trafficking.
Rodriguez said locals have expressed concern over sex workers being active near homes and schools.
She described the cameras as a tool to support officers in the field, particularly as resources are stretched.
“Given that we do have a lack of resources, technology, in any form or fashion, is something that we would like to enhance our ability to assist our officers out in the field,” Rodriguez said.
The cameras are not meant to replace officers in the field, Rodriguez said, but could provide insight about the situation on the ground.
“In terms of surveillance, I know that is always a concern too, but realistically speaking, we don’t have the personnel to sit and watch cameras all day,” Rodriguez said. “We are responding to radio calls, we are handling protests, we are investigating these human trafficking incidents that are out there. And so I don’t want folks to think that we are just sitting at a camera all day and monitoring everybody’s interactions throughout their day. That is not our mission. That is not our goal.”
Instead, the cameras would be used in specific cases, particularly those involving suspected trafficking. The ultimate goal, Rodriguez said, is to “get rid of the corridor” and deter human trafficking.
Rodriguez added that the issue is complex and affects people in different ways.
“What needs to be differentiated is some women voluntarily enter this lifestyle, whereas some other women are being kidnapped and forcibly made to become prostitutes,” she said. “And if we can change and save those women, that is the goal.”
But Jayme Kusyk, a Koreatown resident and member of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, said the timing of the proposal raises concerns.
“The reason for this increased policing both downtown and now Koreatown as well, specifically on Western Avenue Corridor, is motivated by the major world events coming here,” Kusyk said. “They’re trying to gentrify and clean up areas around Wilshire and Western where a lot of folks will be staying for the Olympics.”
