National Human Trafficking Hotline<\/a> has statistics for Michigan that go back to 2007.<\/p>\nSince 2007 there have been 3,307 human trafficking cases identified by the hotline for a total of 6,909 victims.<\/p>\n
2023 data<\/p>\n
Signals received: 779<\/p>\n
Cases identified: 254<\/p>\n
Victims involved: 506<\/p>\n
2024 data<\/p>\n
Signals received: 764<\/p>\n
Cases identified: 340<\/p>\n
Victims involved: 585<\/p>\n
But when it comes to this data, DeSantis said the numbers should actually be much higher.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I can tell you is I don\u2019t believe any of those numbers. I wish I could tell you that I did but they are not accurate. These numbers underrepresent the scale of the problem,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n
Michigan\u2019s human trafficking laws<\/p>\n
DeSantis also brought up concerns about how Michigan laws handle the criminal side of human trafficking.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery commercial sex-worker has a story, often more than one, about how law enforcement or medical personnel failed them at a moment when they were about ready to disclose on their trafficker,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n
People convicted of purchasing sex face the possibility of 93 days in jail and\/or a $500 fine. If the person they purchased sex from is a minor, then the penalty goes up to 5 years in jail.<\/p>\n
DeSantis said that punishment isn\u2019t enough. He said the purchaser should face harsher penalties and the system should be kinder to victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers throughout Oakland County are now trained to treat human trafficking victims as people who have a life and a history and most importantly a future outside of trafficking,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n
Michigan Human Trafficking Commission 2024 report<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LANSING, Mich. \u2013 Human trafficking puts the state\u2019s most vulnerable people in serious danger. Oakland County Assistant Prosecuting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[6492,795,143,145,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-238333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-investigations","9":"tag-michigan","10":"tag-oakland","11":"tag-oakland-headlines","12":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}