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                            Library & Multimedia
 Policing Human Trafficking: Cultural Blinders and Organizational Barriers
NCJ Number
              248726

Author(s)
          Amy Farrell, Rebecca Pfeffer
Date Published

May 2014
Length
              19 pages
Annotation
              Using data from case records and qualitative interviews with police, prosecutors, and victim service providers in 12 counties, this article discusses the challenges local police face in identifying cases of human trafficking.
Abstract
              Since 2000, the Federal Government and all 50 States have passed laws that criminalize the trafficking of persons for labor and commercial sex. To date, relatively few human trafficking cases have been identified, investigated, and prosecuted by local criminal justice authorities.  The current study found that the culture of local police agencies and the perceptions of police officials about human trafficking do not support the identification of a broad range of human trafficking cases. Since local definitions of human trafficking are still evolving, police focus on sex trafficking of minors, which they perceive to be the most serious problem facing their communities. Reluctance to differentiate between vice and sex trafficking minimizes the problem of human trafficking and makes labor trafficking seem largely nonexistent.  (Publisher abstract modified)
      
  
          Additional Details
Agencies
        NIJ-Sponsored


  
  
        
  Award
        Identifying Challenges to Improve the Investigation and Prosecution of State and Local Human Trafficking Cases
    
  
  
Date Published: May 1, 2014
    
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