Human Trafficking Organizations and Facilitators: A Detailed Profile and Interviews with Convicted Traffickers in the United States

The data that has been collected on human traffickers or trafficking cases is neither systematic nor large enough to understand the criminal business of trafficking and to develop typologies of trafficking organizations and their facilitators. Virtually absent from the literature is information from the perspectives of human traffickers themselves, that would enable researchers and law enforcement to understand trafficker's motivations, perceptions of risk, strategies for risk mitigation, the structure and operation of trafficking organizations, how facilitators contribute to trafficking operations, and other data that could inform more effective prevention and enforcement strategies.
This project will fill these gaps and directly addresses two of NIJ's three stated areas of interest: (1) traffickers, trafficking organizations, and their facilitators, and (2) both labor and sex trafficking. The project team will gather quantitative and qualitative data from two key sources. First, the project team will access data and Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs) held by the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC). Second, the project team will conduct in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of human traffickers, the individuals best positioned to provide information about their motivations, decision making processes, strategies, organizations, and relationships. ca/ncf