An Exploratory Study of Labor Trafficking Among U.S. Citizen Victims, 2019-2020 (ICPSR 38137)
Version Date: Feb 13, 2024 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Meredith Dank, City University of New York. John Jay College of Criminal Justice;
Amy Farrell, Northeastern University;
Sheldon Zhang, University of Massachusetts-Lowell
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38137.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
Recent research has identified numerous challenges facing victims of labor trafficking in the U.S. (Owens, et al., 2014; Brennan, 2014). Most of the research on labor trafficking occurring in the U.S., however, has focused on the experiences of non-citizen and foreign national victims. There are many reasons to suspect that labor trafficking victimization occurs among U.S. citizens, although the identification of this phenomenon has been difficult. For example, the homeless and those with insecure housing, individuals with intellectual and physical disability, low-wage and transitional workers, and those working in illicit economic markets or within sexualized labor services are anticipated to be at higher risk for labor trafficking victimization.
In this exploratory mixed-methods study, the research team answered four main questions to help illuminate the phenomenon of labor trafficking of U.S. citizens.
- What are the personal, economic, or structural vulnerabilities that put U.S. citizens at risk for labor trafficking?
- What does labor trafficking looks like for U.S. citizens and where does it fall on a continuum of labor exploitation?
- How are U.S. citizens recruited into, move to, experience, and escape from labor trafficking victimization?
- How do U.S. citizen labor trafficking victims seek help or exit exploitative labor situations?
These questions were answered through surveys with individuals at high risk for labor trafficking victimization across four U.S. sites (n=240), individual interviews with a subsample of survey respondents (n=27), and interviews with service providers (n=20). The surveyed population were citizens who were born in the U.S., those who were naturalized citizens at the time of their victimization, and legal permanent residents. The sampling strategy relied on several snowball and purposive sampling techniques and were developed in partnership with social service agencies, government agencies, and community contacts with knowledge of or contact with labor trafficking in each of the sites. As such, the study was not designed to generate prevalence estimation or to claim any representativeness of labor trafficking violations among U.S. citizens.
This collection only includes the quantitative survey data. Qualitative interview data are not available.
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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
City
Restrictions View help for 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.
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Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The purpose of this study was to explore labor exploitation and labor trafficking violations among United States citizens, with the goal of building basic knowledge about the phenomenon and attributes of this victim population.
Study Design View help for Study Design
To recruit participants, the research team worked with local service providers in Anchorage, Alaska; San Diego, California; New York, New York; and Boston, Massachusetts. (Boston was added later in the study as a second Northeastern U.S. site due to slow recruitment.) Service providers identified current and former clients who met the eligibility criteria and provided them with contact information. In addition, English and Spanish recruitment flyers were also posted at service providers, health clinics, bodegas, parks, and on social media.
Potential participants who contacted the research team completed a screener, then, upon confirming eligibility, scheduled an in-person visit to complete the survey. Participants self-administered the survey using a tablet and received a $30 gift card for completion. To encourage referrals, participants also received $15 cash for each person they successfully recruited (up to three people, $45 total). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the survey was modified to an online option in 2020.
To capture extreme cases, the research team also contacted a subsample of participants for individual interviews. The team also conducted interviews with local social service providers, law enforcement officials, and prosecutors representing 20 organizations. Interviews were transcribed and uploaded into NVivo for analysis. Qualitative analysis followed a grounded theory content analysis approach, utilizing open and axial coding.
Sample View help for Sample
Participants were eligible for the study if they were at least 15 years old; were a native-born or naturalized U.S. citizen, or lawful permanent resident; and experienced at least one abusive work situation. The research team used a combination of snowball and purposive sampling approaches to recruit survey participants across the four study sites. The final survey sample was 240. Participants who also completed semi-structured interviews disclosed that they experienced more than 5 exploitative labor abuses and consented to follow-up (final n=27).
Time Method View help for Time Method
Universe View help for Universe
United States citizens (native-born, naturalized) or permanent legal residents who have experienced at least one incident of labor trafficking and/or exploitation.
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
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
The survey contains six question blocks representing broad categories of labor exploitation and abuse experiences:
- Deception and lies
- Exploitative labor practices
- Restrictions of physical and communicative freedom
- Intimidation, threats, and fears (2 blocks)
- Abuses of sexual nature
In each block, participants answered if each listed item had ever happened to them; if so, if it had happened within the last 12 months; the number of times it occurred; the jobs worked where incidents occurred; and if they had told anyone.
Additional background items include whether the respondent had incurred any debt to work in the United States, past experiences of homelessness, challenges to employment (i.e., incarceration, substance abuse, violence), previous mental health diagnoses, and receipt of public benefits.
Demographic items include age (year of birth), race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, education level, relationship status, veteran status, housing status, and number of children.
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Not applicable.
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
None
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2024-02-13
Version History View help for Version History
2024-02-13 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.
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