Legal Responses to Trafficking: Evaluability Assessments of Five Programs
Date
2021
Journal Title
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Publisher
Center for Court Innovation and RTI International
Abstract
For any of these programs to coalesce around a coherent, feasible, and nationally replicable
model, policymakers have an urgent need for credible scientific information on their
efficacy. To better understand these types of initiatives and determine whether and how
evaluation could shed light on what works (or does not work) and why, in 2019, the National
Institute of Justice awarded a grant to the Center for Court Innovation and RTI International
to conduct evaluability assessments of five programs that serve human trafficking victimdefendants at key decision-making points along the criminal justice system continuum: arrest
(police), prosecution (district attorney), and sentencing (court). An evaluability assessment
helps identify whether a full program evaluation is justified, feasible, and likely to provide
useful information. It indicates whether programs could be meaningfully evaluated and
whether the findings would help improve the programs and contribute to the field. The
findings from this foundational research study serve as an important first step toward future
research to assess the effectiveness of these or similar diversion programs for trafficking
victims.
Description
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Keywords
research, victim-defendants, court, trafficking, program evaluation
Citation
Swaner, R., White, E., Krieger, K., Pfeffer, R., Gourdet, C., Walters, J. H., & Charm, S. (2021). Legal Responses to Trafficking: Evaluability Assessments of Five Programs. Washington, DC: Center for Court Innovation and RTI International.