Capturing Human Trafficking Victimization Through Crime Reporting, United States, 2013-2016 (ICPSR 37907)
Despite public attention to the problem of human trafficking, it has proven difficult to measure the problem. Improving the quality of information about human trafficking is critical to developing sound anti-trafficking policy. In support of this effort, in 2013 the Federal Bureau of Investigation incorporated human trafficking offenses in the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) program. Despite this achievement, there are many reasons to expect the UCR program to underreport human trafficking. Law enforcement agencies struggle to identify human trafficking and distinguishing it from other crimes. Additionally, human trafficking investigations may not be accurately classified in official data sources. Finally, human trafficking presents unique challenges to summary and incident-based crime reporting methods. For these reasons, it is important to understand how agencies identify and report human trafficking cases within the UCR program and what part of the population of human trafficking victims in a community are represented by UCR data. This study provides critical information to improve law enforcement identification and reporting of human trafficking.
Coding criminal incidents investigated as human trafficking offenses in three US cities, supplemented by interviews with law and social service stakeholders in these locations, this study answers the following research questions:
- How are human trafficking cases identified and reported by the police?
- What sources of information about human trafficking exist outside of law enforcement data?
- What is the estimated disparity between actual instances of human trafficking and the number of human trafficking offenses reported to the UCR?
Data from Urban Institute's Survey on Forced Marriage in the United States, 2017 (ICPSR 36855)
These data are part of NACJD's Fast Track Release and are distributed as they were received from the data depositor. The files have been zipped by NACJD for release, but not checked or processed except for the removal of direct identifiers. Users should refer to the accompanying readme file for a brief description of the files available with this collection and consult the investigator(s) if further information is needed.
The Urban Institute, in collaboration with Tahirih Justice Center, sought to examine forced marriages in the United States via an exploratory study of the victimization experiences of those subjected to and threatened with forced marriage. The study also sought to begin to understand elements at the intersection of forced marriage with intimate partner and sexual violence, such as: how perpetrators threaten and actually force victims into marriages; the elements of force, fraud, or coercion in the tactics used to carry out victimization; other case demographics and dynamics (e.g., overseas marriages versus those in the United States); factors that put individuals at risk of forced marriage or that trigger or elevate their risk of related abuses; help-seeking behavior; the role of social, cultural, and religious norms in forced marriage; and the ability (or lack thereof) of service providers, school officials, and government agencies with protection mandates (law enforcement, child protection, and social workers) to screen for, and respond to, potential and reported cases of forced marriage.
This collection contains 1 Stata file: ICPSR-Data-File.dta (21007 cases; 48 variables).
The qualitative data are not available as part of this data collection at this time.
Understanding What Works in the Successful Identification, Investigation, and Prosecution of Labor Trafficking Cases in the United States, 2021-2022 (ICPSR 39017)
This objective of this study was to identify promising practices in labor trafficking identification and response in five U.S. counties that have demonstrated innovation and commitment to addressing the problem of labor trafficking. Innovative strategies included dedicated labor trafficking investigators, specialized units within county district attorneys' offices, and a statewide multidisciplinary team approach that incorporates efforts to identify and respond to labor trafficking.
Through a review of closed case records and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 73 anti-labor trafficking stakeholders, this study sought to investigate how labor trafficking came to be prioritized in these jurisdictions and how labor trafficking response is situated in the unique policy, legal, and cultural frameworks of each participating county. This project also explored the ways in which labor trafficking enforcement is understood and operationalized as distinct from sex trafficking enforcement and identifies the challenges addressing labor trafficking with which these five U.S. counties continue to struggle despite their prioritization and established frameworks. Research questions for this study were:
- Are there patterns in the characteristics of labor trafficking cases identified by law enforcement at the state and local level?
- How does the identification and investigation of labor trafficking cases differ from that of sex trafficking cases in terms of case characteristics, collaboration within and among agencies, case resolutions, and case outcomes?
- What are the features of successful labor trafficking investigations?
This collection contains case-level (DS1) and victim-level (DS2) data extracted from closed case records obtained from agencies involved in the study, and qualitative coding summaries containing direct quotes from the interview respondents (DS3). Due to disclosure risk, verbatim interview transcripts were not archived.