Mind Games: Understanding Trafficker Psychological Warfare

Derek Williams didn't want to be a career pimp when he grew up. He dreamed of becoming an attorney. He did eventually stand in front of a judge but not as a lawyer. Abuse, neglect, and other trauma led him to the streets in search of a father figure. Instead, he found a three-bag-a-day heroin addiction.

When he'd go with his friends to the prostitution track to rob sex buyers to support his habit, he noticed the only ones getting arrested were the girls. That hatched a plan to protect himself from jail time while still making enough money to buy dope. At 16, he talked his 14-year-old girlfriend into letting him sell her, embarking on a 32-year career, trafficking more than 150 victims in all 50 states, Canada, and Europe.

Derek takes us deep inside the mind of a trafficker, pulling back the veil on the psychological warfare they wage against our children. Each chapter intertwines Derek's story with evidence-based research, practical tools, and personal insights to not only prevent children from becoming the victim of someone like he was but to keep them from becoming who he was.

For more than a decade, Derek Williams has been working to get pimps, buyers, and their victims out of the game. Derek is passionate about helping people understand how pimps and other predators prey upon our youth, the vulnerabilities they target, how they manipulate and control them once they are under their control, and how they keep them coming back. He speaks from an in-depth knowledge and understanding of how they do this after first selling his girlfriend when he was 16 and she was 14. From there, he spent 32 years as a pimp, trafficking more than 150 people in all 50 states, Canada, and Europe. He left the game after a life-changing experience. He comprehends, acknowledges, and takes ownership of the predator he was without any excuses. His deep remorse for the hurt and pain he caused so many led him to dedicate his life to getting people out and educating others about the horrors and realities of what traffickers do and how they do it. Derek puts it this way: "By unpacking my story, I hope to give you strategies to combat the hopelessness that holds many of our children captive, making them easy prey for a skilled predator or an incubator for a beast in the making. While I can never make retribution for all the lives I ravaged, I long to prevent the destruction of more of our children."He also is passionate about teaching professionals, first responders, and caregivers how to keep our youth off the path of becoming recruiters or traffickers.