On this week’s show, we’re gonna speak with Lisa Hansen. She’s the founder and CEO of a Tucson nonprofit called Power Over Predators. Lisa is a subject matter expert with 20 years of experience. She’s a professional speaker, a trainer, an author, and a youth care provider. And she believes there’s a hidden pandemic destroying our youth.

Today is June 4th, my name is Tom Heath and you’re listening to “Life Along the Streetcar”.

Each and every Sunday our focus is on Social, Cultural and Economic impacts in Tucson’s Urban Core and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about. From A Mountain to the U of A and all stops in between. You get the inside track- right here on 99.1 FM, streaming on DowntownRadio.org- we’re also available on your iPhone or Android using our very own Downtown Radio app. Reach us by email contact@lifealongthestreetcar.org — interact with us on Facebook at LifeAlongTheStreetcar and follow us on Twitter @StreetcarLife

Transcript (Unedited)

Tom Heath

Good morning. It’s a beautiful Sunday in the Old Pueblo and you’re listening to KTTT Tucson. Thank you for spending a part of your brunch hour with us on your downtown Tucson community sponsored volunteer powered Rock and Roll Radio Station.

Tom Heath

On this week’s show, we’re gonna speak with Lisa Hansen. She’s the founder and CEO of a Tucson nonprofit called Power Over Predators. Lisa is a subject matter expert with 20 years of experience. She’s a professional speaker, a trainer, an author, and a youth care provider. And she believes there’s a hidden pandemic destroying our youth. We’ll get the details in just a moment. Today is June 4th, 2023. My name is Tom Heath, and you’re listening to Life along the streetcar.

Tom Heath

Each and every Sunday are focused on social cultural and economic impacts in Tucson’s urban core and we shed light on hidden gems everyone should know about. From a mountain to the University of Arizona and all stops in between you get the inside track right here on 99.1 FM streaming on downtownradio.org also available on your iPhone or Android with our very own Downtown Radio Tucson app. And if you want to interact with us on the show, Facebook and Instagram are the best ways to do that. And we also have information and past episodes and Details about our book on our website, which is life along the streetcar.org And of course you can listen to our podcast just about anywhere you find your favorite podcasts.

Tom Heath

June is upon us The summer is here if you haven’t made plans and you probably have for the kiddos, remember Presidio Museum has some fun summer camps, like some archaeology stuff and other cool things that as a kid I would have enjoyed. I don’t know if all kids would but I certainly would have. And then also remember it’s a little bit warmer out there so a lot of these venues have modified hours for the summer. I believe the Presidio is open Wednesdays now through Sundays with some limited hours and probably have fewer walking tours although they may have. Check out their website, twosoundpresidio.com, for more information about their classes and their summer hours. And while you’re there, check out their Dandelion cafe that’s newly opened It’s in the historic duplex right next to the Presidio I had some coffee and a little pastry in there the other day pretty darn good and Kind of gives you an idea of what this 150 year old or so former house, this row house here in Tucson would have looked like. Anyway, all that information is over on the Presidio’s website.

Tom Heath

Well, today we’ve got a very delicate subject. We’ve got Lisa Hanson. She is the founder and CEO of an organization called Power Over Predators. And I will let you know now that the nature of the conversation has to do with young people and abuse and potentially the sex trafficking that is happening and the work that Lisa and others are doing to identify, prevent, and educate people on this matter. So some of the things we talk about are a little uncomfortable. Just a little heads up there,

Tom Heath

if you’ve got younger people in the room, may or may not be suitable for them, but the adults probably need that information to share with them. But I had a chance to talk with Lisa by phone just a couple of days ago and this interview was very compelling. And rather than try to edit it down into a single show, we are going to do it over two weeks. So we’ve got this Sunday and then next Sunday on the 11th, we’ll have the second portion of the interview today. I found her to be very fascinating in the work that she’s doing, so crucial. She’s working all over the city, but with a lot of homeless youth at risk and sort of a population of, increased population in the downtown area, We thought it was important to get her perspective. And we know that she’s at risk in sort of a population of increased population in the downtown area we thought it was important to get her perspective. Be mindful of the topic is sensitive so just keep that in mind as you’re listening. Here’s an interview Lisa Hansen, the CEO and founder of the program Power Over Predators, something that has been ongoing for some time. Lisa, welcome to the show here.

Lisa Hansen

Thanks for having me.

Tom Heath

So I was introduced to your program by another guest of ours, Enrique Aldana, who was telling me that I had to talk to you. And I said, okay. And then you and I spoke a little bit a few weeks ago to get a little backstory on the program and I was like, oh my gosh, how does something like this happen in Tucson and not everyone be talking about it? So I appreciate you taking some time to share what you’re doing. Yeah.

Lisa Hansen

Well, I appreciate the opportunity for conversation because you’re right, it’s a conversation that a lot of people kind of shy away from, just really don’t want to talk about, don’t want to believe that it’s something that’s happening.

Lisa Hansen

But our kids matter and we’ve got to, that’s my whole goal is just protecting kids.

Tom Heath

Well, the organization is called Power Over Predators and can you give us kind of an overview of what you do? I know it’s, we don’t have a lot of time, so it’s not super in-depth, but really kind of give us the idea of what you’re doing. And then I’d like to know a little bit about more how you got involved and the ways people can get involved to help.

Lisa Hansen

Sure. So Right off the bat, what we do is we provide prevention education. I believe that prevention is, well, it’s actually the first P when it comes to on a national level, how do we approach the issue of reducing child exploitation, specifically child sex trafficking, and they bring up four Ps, and it starts with prevention. And then it goes to protection and prosecution and then partnership. The interesting thing is, is across the country, prevention is what is lacking. And so I’ve been doing prevention education for about 25 years now. And it’s just such a powerful tool because it’s a discussion, it’s a conversation, it’s helping kids define things so that they can be aware or realize that maybe they’re in a sticky situation that they don’t know how to get out of. So again, I could tell story after story after doing this for so many years. But when we started addressing the issue in Tucson back in 2010. And we found out that there was absolutely nobody assigned in law enforcement to

Lisa Hansen

trafficking, to human trafficking, specifically child trafficking. And so We just thought that it would be an important thing to just raise awareness and, you know, conversations with law enforcement were, well, this is really nice that you’re doing this, but we’ve never had a single case of trafficking in Tucson. So why, why the sudden interest? And what we learned from that discussion is this, a discussion 25 years, I mean, for me personally, 25 years later, we’re still having, that people just don’t know what sex trafficking is, what child sex trafficking is, and how big of an issue it is in every community, in every area. It is not discriminatory. It will find itself wherever it can.

Tom Heath

And so- I know when, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I know when you and I were talking, I think that’s the thing that really hit home for me when you’re talking to law enforcement and they’re saying, well, we don’t have a problem. And then you went through and explained to them what the definitions were. And all of a sudden, like, oh, well, we have a huge problem.

Lisa Hansen

Right. And what was ironic about that scenario was at the time when we were having this discussion and they said that they’d never had a single case, it was because they didn’t understand the definition of child sex trafficking where anybody who’s a minor, a child under the age of 18, if they participate in any type of sex act for anything of value, it is the felony crime of child sex trafficking. And we can go into that a little bit more, but what was interesting at the time was there were eight girls in juvenile detention serving time for prostitution. Now what doesn’t make sense there is if we’re talking about juvenile detention so we’re definitely talking about minors and a minor cannot legally consent to prostitution so they instead of being called child prostitutes I really encouraged the narrative to switch to, they are prostituted children. And so we had people serving time, especially girls serving time and facing criminal charges and being charged with crimes of prostitution when

Lisa Hansen

in fact they were victims of child trafficking. And so this is not to shine a negative light on law enforcement, we’ve made a lot of changes. And Once you understand the definition, it’s like, oh, okay, I get it now. And so I think, I think what most of us really don’t understand is the implications of what’s happening with our youth online, because 88% of the sex trafficking cases today are happening online. They’re happening on Instagram, they’re happening on Facebook, they’re happening on child apps, they’re happening on gaming apps. And people are like, but I thought trafficking was a child being kidnapped. It’s absolutely not. A child can be trafficked behind their own screen at their home while they’re playing a video game because they are participating in or they are being coerced into giving nude photos of themselves or videos of themselves to a predator online who is using that content to either a sell it as child pornography, which now we have a transfer of funds. So it’s a very

Lisa Hansen

deep, dark situation that just so many people aren’t aware of because we don’t see it happening in front of us. We don’t believe that it’s happening. So we have to take a look at it. And for me personally, because it’s happening to children that are so very young and the average age where a child gets a phone now or a smart device is six. And so, you know, if we don’t, if we aren’t protecting our kids and we aren’t aware of how predators are using, especially devices to get to kids, then they’re just, How does a child stand a chance? I always compare it to shark infested waters. You know, it’s like, how is a child going to not get pulled down by one of those sharks when there’s the FBI released the numbers at any given time? There’s over 500, 000 predators online. So that’s one child against that many predators that are out there hunting for kids online. So for me, that’s where the education piece comes in. I appreciate the idea of needing to prosecute traffickers and I appreciate needing

Lisa Hansen

to protect people with aftercare, but the problem is all of that is too late because that means something’s already happened that that child has been abused or exploited and so that’s why prevention is just key in this conversation.

Tom Heath

That is Lisa Jansen, she is the the CEO and founder of Power Over Predators. And we’re gonna finish the second part of this conversation in just a few minutes after the break. And just as a reminder, this is gonna spread out over two weeks. So what you’re hearing today are really parts one and two of a four-part series, all focusing with Lisa and the work that she’s doing and her team is doing at Power Over Predators. My name is Tom Heath, you’re listening to Life Along the Streetcar on Downtown Radio, 99.1 FM and streaming on downtownradio.org.

Speaker 3

Greetings and salutations, Downtown Radio listeners. Paleo Dave, your unfrozen caveman DJ here to spread the good word about the Scrambled Sunrise Rock Mix, happening every weekday morning from 7 to 9 a.m. Right here on Downtown Radio. From the earliest days of psych, punk, and new wave, to 80s college rock, 90s alternative, and the ongoing wave of 21st century indie rock, it’s all right here on the Scrambled Sunrise. So tune in via 99.1 FM if you’re in the greater downtown area, or streaming worldwide via downtownradio.org.

Tom Heath

Welcome back. We’re in the middle of our conversation with Lisa Hansen, the founder and CEO of Power Over Predators. Mentioned this a few times, but this is a two-day episode. So we have four segments, one before the break, one after the break, and we’ll have two segments next week on the 11th to cover this topic. It’s quite in-depth, and if you’re just joining us, please note that the nature of the conversation is somewhat sensitive. Power Over Predators provides education and prevention techniques for those that are at risk for abuse and sex trafficking. As we find from Lisa, it’s more prevalent than we’d like to think. But again, the topic can be sensitive, the conversation can be delicate, so just be aware who might be listening. We’re gonna jump back into the interview and get a little sense of the importance of what the work that they’re doing. And in this part of the interview, we’re going to talk more about the ways that they engage with the community.

Lisa Hansen

That is what Power Overcreditors does. We have prevention for parents, for teachers, for kids. We’ve been, our content is available for fifth grade through college students right now. We are producing content for children that are K through 5 at this point. I’m a big person who likes to dig and I ask the question, how did we get here? And trafficking is one of those topics where people are very interested in and want to understand what it is, but you have to figure out how you got there. And where we got there is that we have an abuse epidemic. I call it the silence epidemic that is taking out our kids today because the numbers that just came out from the CDC are, you know, 588, 000 children were abused in 2021. That includes all different forms of abuse, including sexual exploitation. And the highest age group of children that were being abused were so sadly zero to five years old.

Tom Heath

And that number, that 600, 000 number, that’s of identified reported cases. So it’s likely that that number is significantly larger.

Lisa Hansen

Oh, for sure. And that’s what they were saying, even in the report, that they believe that the report is low because, obviously, reporting on these types of Statistics are always a couple of years behind. And that was during COVID when most kids, a lot of reports come from kids that are at school, you know, a teacher or somebody recognizes a child care provider recognizes the signs of abuse. And so they are assuming that many, many children went unnoticed and unreported because they were stuck at home.

Tom Heath

And when we spoke, you were talking about just some very simple examples of identifying a toxic situation. I think we’re talking about like the, some of the homeless youth, especially like in the, you know, as we get into the urban area, you’ve got larger concentrations of urban youth And just the day-to-day survival of maybe finding food or a place to stay can lead to a toxic scenario.

Lisa Hansen

For sure. And that’s, you know, it’s kind of exactly how I started presenting this concept was based on my own story, because at four years old, that’s when sexual abuse began. As a result of that, for me personally, the identity crisis that I had of just believing that I was worthless motivated me to run away when I was 14. And for me personally, I felt like running away was something that I was in total control of. I did not consider myself a homeless youth, even though I was couch surfing. But I felt like I had a roof over my head. I’m not homeless, I’m in control. Long story short, after I’d been missing for a while, again, I didn’t consider myself missing. I knew where I was. So there’s a mindset behind kids that run or that are homeless that they, why are they running? You know, why are they in that situation? Because they’re running from something to protect themselves. And so my situation,

Lisa Hansen

it was not my parents that were my abusers, it was extended family members. And so when I ran, it was a very big shock to my parents because it was just, They didn’t see it coming. But when law enforcement found me, they presented the option to my dad to have me be arrested and taken to juvenile detention for running away, or he can knock on the door with them outside saying, you can either come home with me or you can go home with them. And so I chose to go home with him but my case was never, they didn’t look at the, they never questioned the men that I was living with at the time. They were all adult men. The trafficking that was taking place that nobody would have identified as trafficking. And like what you brought up is the need to survive. A lot of youth on their own and youth on the streets and who feel like they wouldn’t classify themselves as homeless. Whatever they do, they do to get by to survive. And so for youth, when I present to youth, I caution them to protect themselves

Lisa Hansen

because there’s nobody out there has the right to make them do something for a meal, make them do something sexually for a meal, make them do something sexually for a ride across town. It’s just incredible the risk that the homeless youth have placed upon them because they just have an extended level of vulnerabilities that are taken advantage of.

Tom Heath

And here you are around 14 years old and the police are coming to talk to you, whereas you’re in a situation where no one even investigates what’s happening around you.

Lisa Hansen

Right, right. It was just more, you know, the runaway returned home to family. You know, that was how my case was closed. And you know, Again, I don’t hold this isn’t true. It’s just a lack of awareness. It is a lack of education.

Tom Heath

Oh, understood. Yeah, I don’t think it’s anyone not caring. It’s just not understanding that that situation was as bad as it was.

Lisa Hansen

Correct, correct. And it didn’t get any better. I ran away again and ended up in Kansas City for quite a while on the streets until I ended up pregnant with my first son. And you know, it just,

Tom Heath

one

Lisa Hansen

of the things that I did have instilled in me was just the value of children, and so I saw, even though I was so young, I saw the value of what I had, and it was a big life change for me to start taking care of myself so that I could take care of my son. And unfortunately, I married my abuser and so that didn’t go well and I had to run from that situation. So, you look at the bunny trail of starting with sexual abuse, ending up being trafficked, and then ending up in domestic violence. It’s a very vicious cycle that many, many people can relate to. And so that’s why I just felt

Tom Heath

like

Lisa Hansen

There’s just nobody talking to kids about this. Kids are just totally unaware and have no voice. And we really saw that the need for prevention was finally recognized when one of the biggest schools here in Tucson elementary and middle schools elected to have us come in and do an awareness presentation for the youth. And that day that we had three kids come forward and the most significant one. And I apologize for the severity of what I’m going to say because it just makes people so uncomfortable. But you’ve got to put yourself in the mindset of this is a 12 year old child who this is their life and so their story deserves to be told. But once we defined trafficking in a way that a 12 year old or an 11 year old could understand, she confided that she believed she was a victim of sex trafficking. And when we asked her what was going on in her world, Her simple answer was, well, whenever my mom’s not home, her boyfriend makes me have sex with him and then he

Tom Heath

pays

Lisa Hansen

me $20. And he told me that I’m a whore and that nobody’s gonna believe me and that my mom’s gonna hate me if I say anything. So again, that completely disrupts the idea of what we believe child sex trafficking is because that little girl was being trafficked right out of her own home, under her own roof, with her mom completely unaware of the abuse that’s taking place. But man, once they get that definition, once they understand, it empowers them and they believe that somebody cares enough to tell them the truth and so now they believe that somebody might care enough to get them the help that they need.

Tom Heath

That’s Lisa Hansen, she’s the CEO and founder of an organization called Power Over Predators. It started here in Tucson and now their program material is being used across the country. But Lisa and her team are doing really, really nice work. And again, this is a two-day event. So next Sunday on the 11th, we’re gonna have the final two segments of our interview with her, talking about some upcoming programs, things that are just about to launch here in July, ways to get involved, and then the overall importance of what they’re doing within our community.

Lisa Hansen

My

Tom Heath

name is Tom Heath. You are listening to Life Along the Streetcar and Downtown Radio 99.1 FM and streaming on downtownradio.org.

Tom Heath

Thank you very much Enjoy your evening. Bye. Bye All right, this is gonna be a wrap for us here on episode number 250. Holy smokes, we started back in October of 2017, took some time off during COVID. Episode 250, and I haven’t done the math or the exact count but my guess is we’ve interviewed over 200 people to make that happen because we’ve had some people on multiple times. We’ve re-aired a few episodes that have been intriguing But my guess is we’ve had about 200 interviews. All of those are housed on our website, lifealongthestreetcar.org, if you wanna check out past episodes. It’s really fun to go back to the olden days, back in 2017, when I had no idea what I was doing. The sound quality was horrible, the interview questions were horrible, and our guests were fabulous. Now, I know what I’m doing and our guests are even more fabulous. And I’m hoping the questions are better and the sound is better. Thanks for your support over these last 250 episodes. And if you want to learn more

Tom Heath

about the station on which we’re housed, Downtown Radio, head over to downtownradio.org. You can check out all of the volunteer DJs. Everything that this station does within our community is really fantastic. We have an emphasis on rock and roll, but we also highlight mental health awareness and try to destigmatize those seeking services for mental health. In fact, at the top of the hour today, we have Ty Logan with his show Heavy Mental. Just a great, great weekly episode of Ty putting forth some very candid and honest commentaries to what’s happening within that world. Heavy Mental with Ty Logan coming up at noon. And on our website, downtownradio.org, you can check out all the other shows following us uh… Right after us and before Ty we’ve got words and work with Ted Przelski Ted uh… Interviews people from uh… The labor movement and also interviews writers he does a uh… Rock mix show during the week. Like some of our DJs, he does double duty and does a fabulous job. All that

Tom Heath

information’s on the website. Schedule of events, Monday through Saturday, pretty much rock mix, then on Sundays, alternative types of music and these talk shows that we put out. And I just keep finding more and more stuff to love about this day. So just when I think I’ve heard everything, I click on a time when I don’t normally listen and like, oh, well this is new. And truthfully, sometimes it takes me a while to get into the rhythm of something. And not everything’s for everyone, but I have certainly increased my range of music understanding and love because of the time and effort of all of our volunteers on downtown radio. So that being said when you’re over the website checking out the schedule hit the donate button because that is how we stay afloat. We are nonprofit, We get some money from our underwriting, but most of our money comes from you. We need that support. And if you click an ongoing donation monthly, it helps with that budgeting process. We’re volunteer run, so the money

Tom Heath

goes to support the station and make our programming and the quality of what we do even better. If you’ve got suggestions for us on the show itself, you can head over to Facebook and Instagram LifeAlongTheStreetCar and tag us in something, messenger us, if you want to messenger us. That works there as well. And you can head over to our website, lifealongthestreetcar.org, check out, like I said earlier, our past episodes. There’s also a contact button and information on our book. I say it’s our new book, but I think we’ve released it like in almost two years ago, so it’s not new anymore, but it’s still pretty cool. So we’re gonna leave you with a little music today that ties into our theme. This is from a duo called Carling and Will, and I found it off of a 2017 self-titled album and the the name of the song is Protect the Innocent. My name is Tom Heath. I hope you have a great week and tune in next Sunday for more Life Along the streetcar.