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?

Although researchers have begun to piece together a picture of the characteristics of vulnerable individuals, participating industries, and exploitative practices that may lead to labor trafficking, few studies have systematically reviewed labor trafficking cases known to victim service providers and law enforcement officials in the United States. As a result, little is known about the phenomenon of labor trafficking and the illicit networks that support it.For example, it is not known if those networks that facilitate certain types of labor exploitation also facilitate certain types of labor trafficking. This study seeks to address these gaps in knowledge by providing foundational information about labor trafficking victimization and the illicit networks that facilitate it across a range of industries. This study was guided by three research questions:What is the nature of the labor trafficking victimization experience in the United States?How are domestic and international labor trafficking syndicates operating in the United States organized? Who are the traffickers, and what is their connection to other illicit networks that help facilitate labor trafficking operations?What are the challenges of law enforcement agents investigating labor trafficking cases identified by victim service providers? Why are so few identified labor trafficking cases investigated by law enforcement and prosecuted?

This study was a response to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act passed by Congress in 2005, which called for a collection of data; a comprehensive statistical review and analysis of human trafficking data; and a biennial report to Congress on sex trafficking and unlawful commercial sex acts. It examined the human trafficking experiences (and to a lesser extent commercial sex acts) among a random sample of 60 counties across the United States. In contrast to prior research that had examined the issue from a federal perspective, this study examined experiences with human trafficking at the local level across the United States. The specific aims of the research were to: Identify victims and potential victims of domestic labor and sex trafficking; Determine whether they have been identified as victims by law enforcement; and Explore differences between sex trafficking and unlawful commercial sex. To achieve these goals the researchers collected data through telephone interviews with local law enforcement, prosecutors, and service providers; a mail-out statistical survey completed by knowledgeable officials in those jurisdictions; and an examination of case files in four local communities. This latter effort consisted of reviewing incident and arrest reports and charging documents for a variety of offenses that might have involved criminal conduct with characteristics of human trafficking. Through this method, the researchers not only gained a sense of how local authorities handled these types of cases but also the ways in which trafficking victims "fall through the cracks" in the interfaces between local and federal judicial systems as well as among local, state, and federal law enforcement and social service systems.

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. This study examined life histories and experiences of individuals involved in the sex trade in New York City. Also interviewed were twenty-eight criminal justice policymakers, practitioners, and community representatives affiliated with New York City's Human Trafficking Intervention Courts (HTICs). The collection contains 1 SPSS data file (Final-Quantitative-Data-resubmission.sav (n=304; 218 variables)). Demographic variables include gender, age, race, ethnicity, education level, citizenship status, current housing, family size, sexual orientation, and respondent's place of birth.

The study examined human trafficking and the commercialized sex industry in Tijuana, Mexico. The research team conducted interviews with 220 women from the sex industry (Dataset 1), 92 sex trade facilitators (Dataset 2), 30 government/law enforcement officials (Dataset 3), and 20 community-based service providers (Dataset 4).