Law enforcement identification of potential trafficking victims

ABSTRACT

Since the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act nearly 20 years ago, there have been relatively few human trafficking (labor or sex) arrests, charges, and convictions, which casts doubt among some on the magnitude of the problem. However, the absence of cases may not be because they do not exist, but rather because of the hidden nature of trafficking. In this study, we build on the existing literature on police awareness and understanding of sex trafficking by examining a random sample of law enforcement case files for prostitution and human trafficking-related offenses. We conducted descriptive quantitative and qualitative analyses to assess the extent and direction of law enforcement misidentification of sex trafficking cases as well as potential correlates. The results indicate that the misidentification of sex trafficking victims by law enforcement remains a challenge. Implications for policy and practice, as well as future research, are discussed.

Keywords:

• Sex trafficking
• policing
• prostitution

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. The list Farrell and colleagues created was based on the elements of the crime as specified in the TVPA. These are the same elements used in California to define the crime (see https://oag.ca.gov/human-trafficking/what-is).

2. Based on Lutnick and Dang’s (2018) findings, when condoms were mentioned in SFPD incident reports it was associated with a 54% reduction in odds (p = 0.02) of screening for human trafficking and a 58% (p = 0.02) reduction in odds of the incident report correctly identifying whether or not an incident involved human trafficking.

3. All incident reports included a brief description of what the person, or people, was wearing. It was common to see the following phrase, ‘based on manner of dress determined she was loitering for prostitution’ included in the reports. The manner of dress considered indicative of engaging in prostitution was quite varied. Some examples include the following: ‘Black jacket, tight blue jean pants, and tall black boots’; ‘A black down jacket, black shirt, short blue jeans skirt, and black knee-high boots’; ‘Wearing revealing clothing on a very cold night’; ‘Sports bra and daisy duke shorts’.

4. Under the FOPP, first-time purchasers of sex who have no prior violent offenses may enroll in an educational seminar in lieu of prosecution. The FOPP was established in San Francisco in 1995.

5. The results varied slightly for the pre- and post-SVU time periods. Minors made up 20% of cases labeled as trafficking prior to the SVU and 27% post-SVU. No cases screened for trafficking involved minors pre-SVU; about 10% of cases screened for trafficking in the post-SVU period involved minors.

6. Minors were involved in 26 of the 541 incidents in our sample. The research team found indicators of trafficking in all but one of these incidents. The one case we did not identify as trafficking involved a minor who had not had any clients yet.

7. When a report includes the language that someone was referred to human trafficking services it means they received at least one of the following: a referral card to a local service provider, the National Human Trafficking Hotline number, or the contact information for SFPD-SVU (personal communication. Antonio Flores, 2017, 24 May).

8. Quotations used to indicate that this is the term used in the incident report.

9. With the massage establishments operations one or two decoys would enter the establishment first to try to see commercial sex happening and/or negotiate commercial sex with a massage worker. The remaining operation team members would then enter after a period of time. These sting operations differ from inspections solely done by Department of Public Health workers for code violations.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by grant 2015-VF-GX-0107 from the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Notes on contributors

Alexandra Lutnick

Kelle Barrick, a research criminologist in RTI International’s Division for Applied Justice Research, has 20 years of experience in criminal justice and criminological research. Dr. Barrick’s current work focuses broadly on producing empirical research to inform the improvement and reform of processes and programs across the criminal justice system. Her current efforts include estimating the prevalence of sex trafficking and enhancing our understanding of the criminal justice response to trafficking; evaluating an initiative aimed at promoting collective healing between police and the communities they serve; and demonstrating the value and utility of incident-based crime data. Her recent research has been published in Criminology and Public Policy, Justice Quarterly, Journal of Criminal Justice, and Policing: An International Journal.

Meg Panichelli’s teaching and research are grounded in feminist approaches to social work, namely those that incorporate anti-carceral, queer, and intersectional theories of oppression. Her research focuses on harm reduction based social work with people engaged in sex trade, intersections of drug use and pregnancy, and Transformative Justice.

Barrot H. Lambdin is a senior implementation scientist within the Community Health and Implementation Research Program in RTI International’s Behavioral Health research division. He is also an assistant adjunct professor within the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, and an affiliate assistant professor within the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington. Over the last 15 years, Dr. Lambdin has led implementation science initiatives throughout the world that have identified determinants and tested implementation strategies to advance the implementation of evidence-based interventions in healthcare settings. These initiatives have included community-based naloxone distribution and supervised consumption services in the United States, opioid treatment in Tanzania, and HIV prevention and treatment in Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and the United States. Most recently, he has served as the principal investigator on a number of NIH-funded initiatives to optimize our nation’s efforts to reduce opioid overdose fatalities and to support the government of Tanzania in improving the delivery of opioid treatment and HIV treatment for people who use drugs.

Minh Dang is an independent consultant, trainer, and speaker on issues of human trafficking, child abuse, leadership development, and social justice. Minh earned her B.A. in Sociology and Masters in Social Welfare, with an emphasis on Community Mental Health at University of California, Berkeley.

Alexandra Lutnick is a social scientist whose work focuses on people engaged in sex work, people experiencing trafficking, as well as assisting agencies with program evaluation. alix’s work is grounded in harm reduction and strives to always engage community members in the process of knowledge production. alix provides consultation services to non-profit, government, and research organizations, is a lecturer in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a somatic yoga therapist. Her book, Domestic minor sex trafficking: Beyond victims and villains was published in 2016 by Columbia University Press.