Identify, Respond, Prevent: Addressing Human Trafficking Among Youth Involved in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems, Florida, 1993-2020 (ICPSR 39039)

Version Date: Dec 16, 2025

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Principal Investigator(s):
Stacey Cutbush Starseed, Research Triangle Institute

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39039.v1

Version V1

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Summary

This study extended the understanding of human trafficking among youth involved in child welfare and juvenile justice systems by examining relationships among trafficking victimization, youth characteristics, and experiences in the juvenile justice, child welfare, and criminal justice systems. Using de-identified linked administrative data provided by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), and the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), researchers:

  1. informed identification of trafficking victimization by assessing the predictive utility of Florida's Human Trafficking Screening Tool, using ordered multinomial regressions and factor analysis;
  2. informed response to trafficked youth by describing characteristics of those who experience trafficking during juvenile justice or child welfare supervision, or who enter juvenile justice supervision with prior human trafficking allegations, using descriptive statistics and linear and logistic regression;
  3. informed secondary prevention for at-risk youth by identifying those at greatest risk of human trafficking throughout adolescence, and informed tertiary prevention among trafficked youth by identifying those at greatest risk of subsequent victimization following an initial trafficking allegation;
  4. investigated the longitudinal association between human trafficking allegations and subsequent juvenile and adult criminal charges. Data collection included all youth served by DCF who were born in or after 1993, and whose records included at least one maltreatment allegation before February 29th, 2020.

Citation

Cutbush Starseed, Stacey. Identify, Respond, Prevent: Addressing Human Trafficking Among Youth Involved in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems, Florida, 1993-2020. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-12-16. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39039.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. National Institute of Justice (2018-MU-MU-0033)

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Restrictions

Access to these data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement, specify the reason for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1993 -- 2020
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Study Purpose

This study's purpose was to identify trafficked and at-risk youth within existing data on system-involved youth to accomplish the following:

  1. Improve identification of trafficking victimization within the juvenile justice population.
  2. Inform response to at-risk and trafficked youth in both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
  3. Identify children most at risk for initial and subsequent trafficking allegations in both populations.
  4. Understand juvenile justice and adult criminal legal system involvement among persons who have had prior human trafficking allegations.

Study Design

The study team conducted the following analyses using administrative data from the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), and the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF): (1) Assessed the predictive validity of the DCF/DJJ's Human Trafficking Screening Tool (HTST) in identifying trafficking risk and victimization among system-involved youth; (2) Examined characteristics and experiences among children who have experienced an human trafficking allegation (HTA); (3) Investigated initial and subsequent HTAs among crossover children; (4) Examined subsequent DJJ involvement after experiencing a human trafficking victimization allegation; (5) Examined the effects of childhood human trafficking victimization on early-adult criminal legal system involvement.

Deidentified DCF administrative data were provided to RTI directly from DCF for all children born on or after January 1, 1993. DCF data with personal identifiable information (PII) was sent to DJJ, where staff reviewed the data and matched it with DJJ administrative data using PII including the child's name, date of birth, Social Security number, race, and sex. FDLE administrative data were reviewed and matched using the same process. Linking IDs were created to connect data from all three organizations, and de-identified data from both DJJ and FDLE were sent to RTI by DJJ. The final datasets include all children born on or after January 1, 1993 with at least one maltreatment allegation before February 29, 2020. All DCF, DJJ, and FDLE information from 1993 through February 29, 2020 was retained in the analysis files. The study time period was limited to February 2020 to minimize the impacts of COVID-19 on child welfare and juvenile justice reporting and practices.

Time Method

Cross-sectional

Universe

All youth served by DCF who were born in or after 1993, and whose records included at least one maltreatment allegation before February 29th, 2020.

Unit(s) of Observation

Individual

Data Source

Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE)

Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF)

Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ)

Data Type(s)

Description of Variables

The data includes variables about youth human trafficking including the most serious finding of maltreatment; general demographic information such as gender and race; dates of critical events including when an individual went missing, entered an out-of-home placement, was removed from the home, was arrested, was referred for prosecution, and was admitted to a program or service; and additional variables adding context to each aforementioned event. In addition, the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) Human Trafficking Screening Tool Data (DS8) includes survey data from system-involved youth describing human trafficking experiences and victimization.

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Original Release Date

2025-12-16

Version History

2025-12-16 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • ICPSR usually offers files in multiple formats for researchers to be able to access data and documentation in formats that work well within their needs. If you have questions about the accessibility of materials distributed by ICPSR or require further assistance, please visit ICPSR’s Accessibility Center.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.

NACJD logo

This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.