Tarrant County 5 Stones Taskforce recently celebrated a decade of fighting sex trafficking in the metroplex this summer.
The task force works alongside the Fort Worth Police Department (FWPD) and partners with over 15 different organizations and agencies that focus on stopping human trafficking, educating the public about the pervasive issue, and providing resources to survivors.
The team was started in 2014 by just a handful of key stakeholders in the DFW community.
“We just met in a small office space,” founding member and program coordinator of the FWPD Human Trafficking Unit Felicia Tallent told The Dallas Express. “It was just a conversation, really. How can law enforcement and a community better partner to tackle trafficking? What can we do to collaborate? What can we do to work together to fight this issue?”
5 Stones Taskforce was named after its five focus areas, or “stones of focus.”
The first stone is awareness. The task force has initiated multiple billboard campaigns to highlight how the internet is being used to groom and traffick victims.
The next is training. The group provides educational community presentations that are available upon request.
The third stone is legislative advocacy. 5 Stones helps explain pending bills and laws and teaches citizens how best to engage with their representatives.
The fourth is restoration. The task force provides trauma-informed care training and partners with Carrie Grace Consulting, an agency focused on creating a national standard of best practice for residential care.
The final stone is demand. The team at 5 Stones demands the prosecution of traffickers, as well as demands that survivors have access to rehabilitation services.
Tallent says the collaboration between different groups in Tarrant County is what makes the task force so successful.
“Tarrant County is really strong for collaboration. You’ll look at other areas, and sometimes they get caught up in the weeds where people are competing with each other for grant money or clients,” Tallent told DX. “Here in Tarrant County, we’ve developed the mindset that we’re stronger together. People who go after grants often now go after collaborative grants.”
5 Stones offers many ways for community members to make a difference in the lives of those impacted by sex trafficking. Volunteers can write handwritten notes of encouragement to survivors, purchase bus passes for survivors to go to medical and counseling appointments, train to become survivor advocates, and become “survivor friends” by attending socialization events for survivors to meet members of the community who care about them.
Tallent said the team is planning a summit for the spring of 2025 to highlight the partner agencies and the resources available to those in need.
The group holds meetings open to the public on the last Tuesday of every month at 11 a.m. The meetings take place at 1000 Calvert Street in Fort Worth.
In Dallas, sex trafficking has been rampant, especially in Council Member Omar Narvaez’s District 6, which regularly logs the most documented cases of prostitution-related offenses, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The Dallas Police Department has been dealing with staffing issues for years, resulting in lengthy response times and a strain on resources.
Only around 3,000 officers are currently in the field, despite a prior City analysis advising that a force of roughly 4,000 is needed to properly police a jurisdiction the size of Dallas.
For its part, the Dallas City Council approved a budget of only $654 million for DPD this fiscal year, considerably less taxpayer money than what is being spent on public safety in other high-crime cities, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City.