Abstract:
This study explores how local law enforcement agencies classify human trafficking cases
that they identify through their internal records management and external crime reporting
programs in three United States communities. The research team examined over 600 human
trafficking investigations and interviewed law enforcement and crime reporting personnel in
each study site to understand how human trafficking cases are identified and reported by the
police. Interviews with victim service providers and non-law enforcement agencies in each study
community about how they identify and report human trafficking victimizations also helped the
research team understand the sources of information about human trafficking incidents that exist
outside of law enforcement data. Finally, utilizing Multiple System Estimation (MSE)
procedures that compare information about identified human trafficking victims who exist in the
data systems of multiple providers in the study communities, the research team identified how
frequently human trafficking victims are identified across multiple administrative data systems in
a community. MSE procedures were employed to develop an estimate of the number of sex and
labor trafficking victims in each study community as a mechanism to gauge the degree to which
law enforcement data on human trafficking offenses represent the population of human
trafficking victims in a community.