Innovations Blog

King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (Seattle, WA)

Population: 2,269,675 | Number of Full-Time Prosecutors: 250 | Contact Information

The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office (KCPAO) is using innovative approaches to successfully investigate and prosecute sexual exploitation and sex trafficking cases through IPS grant funding and collaboration. 

The IPS team is partnering with local NGOs such as The Lantern Project (SAS)and Businesses Ending Slavery and Trafficking (BEST) in addition to working more collaboratively with King County’s Child Advocacy Center. With these partnerships, KCPAO is enhancing its capability to identify victims and connect them with services and provide additional resources to assist law enforcement in the identification and prosecution of offenders

King County, WA has been on the forefront of combatting human trafficking. However, with ever-emerging technology, exploitation can often be hard to identify when buying sex moves online. Survivors often face unnecessary challenges to accessing services when police, prosecutors, and community-based organizations are not working collaboratively.

KCPAO is expanding the prosecution team by adding a second designated prosecutor and partnering with agencies that are using technology to disrupt trafficking such as Project: Sugar Free and an online application called Freedom Signal that identifies victims and offers them services. KCPAO is also working on offender solutions and prevention by requiring defendants who buy sex to complete an accountability course that addresses the root causes of their actions