Capturing Human Trafficking Victimization Through Crime Reporting, United States, 2013-2016 (ICPSR 37907)
Version Date: Aug 16, 2021 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Amy Farrell, Northeastern University;
Meredith L. Dank, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37907.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
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?
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Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
region
Restrictions View help for Restrictions
This data collection may not be used for any purpose other than statistical reporting and analysis. Use of these data to learn the identity of any person or establishment is prohibited. To protect respondent privacy, this data collection is restricted from general dissemination. To obtain this file, researchers must agree to the terms and conditions of a Restricted Data Use Agreement in accordance with existing ICPSR servicing policies.
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
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Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
- For further information, please see the study's page on the National Institute for Justice website.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
Key Study Questions
- How are human trafficking cases identified and reported by the police?
- How are human trafficking cases identified by the police?
- Once human trafficking cases are identified, how are these cases reported within internal law enforcement information systems?
- Once human trafficking cases are identified, how are these cases reported to external crime reporting programs such as the state reporting systems or the UCR program?
- What sources of information about human trafficking incidents exist outside of law enforcement data?
- How could the sharing of information from these data sources improve case identification and increase our understanding of the prevalence of human trafficking within a jurisdiction?
- What are the barriers to sharing information across administrative systems?
- What is the estimated disparity between actual instances of human trafficking identified in the study communities and the number of human trafficking offenses reported to the UCR?
- How frequently are human trafficking victims identified across multiple administrative data systems in a community?
- What are the reasons for the disparity between reported UCR offenses and the actual prevalence of identified and unidentified human trafficking in a community?
Study Design View help for Study Design
This study analyzes incident reports that were investigated as human trafficking by specialized units in three US police departments between 2013 and 2016 to better understand the characteristics of incidents investigated as human trafficking. Additionally, the study compared human trafficking related incidents that contained an offense code of human trafficking (involuntary servitude or commercial sex) with other incidents investigated as human trafficking but that contain other offense codes than human trafficking.
A targeted selection methodology was used to identify three US jurisdictions where the research team could independently verify that the primary law enforcement agency had investigated a sufficient number of human trafficking cases to support the research. Following an intensive screening process, three sites were chosen. All three study sites represent major metropolitan areas though the sites vary in crime reporting structure (summary vs NIBRS), history reporting of human trafficking crimes into the UCR, and region (Northeast, South and West).
Sample View help for Sample
Targeted selection of three US communities with known human trafficking investigations and capacity to facilitate access to incident report data.
Time Method View help for Time Method
Universe View help for Universe
Police agencies in three US communities, incident reports of human trafficking investigations
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2021-08-16
Version History View help for Version History
2021-08-16 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.
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.
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.