AS FEATURED BY:
48 Hours: Live to Tell: Trafficked
In March 2018, Alyssa’s life and journey was featured on an episode of 48 Hours. View the full episode here.
Newspaper/Online
Just 21, human-trafficking survivor Alyssa Beck has lived a life most cannot imagine
Florida Times Union– Alyssa Beck has love and hope on her hands. She’s not particularly fond of the tattoos, which she got in the Duval County jail along with the cross on her cheek. “Hope was originally hate,” the 21-year-old said. “I changed it because there were people in my life who showed me hope.” People in Beck’s young life – hateful people – once used drugs and violence to drag her into an abyss of unspeakable horrors. Read More Here
Adults, agencies failed Alyssa Beck
Florida Times Union-Throughout her ordeal as a victim of human trafficking, Alyssa Beck was failed repeatedly by government agencies that had the power to help her. Instead, they ignored, labeled and blamed her. Beck encountered a lack of understanding and awareness around human trafficking and what she had endured during her five years in and out of juvenile detention centers, foster care and adult jail. State and local agencies labeled her “promiscuous” and focused on her drug addiction and the crimes she had committed. Her trafficking was treated as an afterthought. Read More Here
‘I am beautiful’: Meet once incarcerated girls who turned their lives around
PBS NewsHour- The criminal justice system in the United States incarcerates more of its youth than any country in the world. Across the nation, about half a million boys and girls are locked up every year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. And although these numbers have dropped in recent years, incarceration rates for girls have declined more slowly. Read More Here
Television
“He told me he could help me,” how a Jacksonville woman was recruited into sex trafficking
First Coast News– A life of sex, drugs and slavery. It’s easy to hear the words ‘sex trafficking’ and think it’s a problem isolated in a far off land or a poor corner of your community. It isn’t. The people pulled into that life include girls and boys who were riding their bikes down your street just a few years ago. Read More Here
Jacksonville human trafficking victims increased 50 percent in 2017
Action News Jax- The number of human trafficking survivors rescued in Jacksonville increased by 50 percent in 2017. According to numbers from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, 66 human trafficking victims were “identified and/or rescued” in 2017. The total compares with 44 in 2016, 42 in 2015 and 51 in 2014. “The word ‘rescue,’ I don’t like using that word. I don’t feel like we are giving survivors enough credit for their own recovery and their own journey,” said Alyssa Beck, who told Action News Jax she escaped from sex trafficking when she was 15 years old. Read More Here
Alyssa Beck 