The only thing new about this problem is that it’s increasing. Many of the teens leave home because of abuse, both sexual and physical. Drug and alcohol abuse plays a big role as well.
Arresting the pimps is not going to reduce the problem. Girls and boys are going to continue to run away and continue to support themselves via prostitution, with or without a pimp. Moreover, arresting pimps doesn’t even touch the problem of boy prostitution since most of them do not use pimps.
Effective early intervention in troubled homes by faith based organizations (without any government involvement) would have the greatest impact on reducing the problem. Combine this approach with an enforcement effort targeted at the “Johns” who are looking for underage girls or boys and arresting them, you might begin to reduce both the pool of available underage prostitutes and take the most depraved predators off the street.
Sadly, even if we were 100% successful in eliminating the problem of the runaways, and even if every pimp in the United States were locked up, it would have very little impact on the larger problem of child sexual abuse. Child prostitution accounts for a tiny segment of the total pool of children who are sexually abused.
We need to rethink how we spend our money and what we spend it on.
Runway teens at risk to become human trafficking victims, Florida experts say » Naples Daily News.
truthalliancefoundation.org 
Tom ,It seems to me that two elements of child protection work at odds. A missing teen is sometimes perceived as ‘ho hum’ runaway by law enforcement since emancipation laws went into effect, especially if they are sixteen or over. Parents who report them missing are often put off as is the critical search time for a rescue if they have been abducted.
Also, the market for child porn, via the internet opened new international financial resevoirs for perps.
Investigators in law enforcement are constantly on the look out for those big, career making, cases. Very few cases involving children meet that criterion, which tends to keep such cases on the investigator’s back burner. This is a mistake. Investigating these cases in depth can sometimes lead to surprising discoveries. Many of the small time pimps also are engaged in trafficking drugs, and in distributing child pornography. If investigated properly they can make cases against the entire network of child porn customers.
The only reason the FBI arrested all these pimps at the same time was to make it seem like a bigger case than it was, and to make it seem that they are doing more to solve the problem than they are. They all seemed like very small time, easy targets.
Child porn is a huge problem, and offers large dollar rewards for the savvy pornographer. But using the internet to arrange the sale is very risky for them. From what I can tell by looking at a few selected cases in this round of arrests, it doesn’t look like they rounded up any big time pornographers or pimps. We’ll just have to wait and see how many secondary cases come out of these arrests. Most of the prostitutes were adults, so there probably won’t be very many.
Recently ,the point was made on the News that it was an NSA employee who alerted the authorities which made it possible to arrest an individual engaging in the circulation of child pornography.
Perhaps this was to reassure the public that NSA spying is a worthy cause? If this were the case, I would think many more would have been arrested by now and the arrests would garner more public support for the oversight .
Yet with all the publicity, as with the war on drugs, it is disheartening that statistically the safety of our youth does not seem to be a first priority.
Excellent idea for a blog ,Thanks!
Thanks. Spread the word.