NIJ’s Human Trafficking Research Portfolio funds research on sex and labor trafficking of adults and children in the United States, including topics related to its nature and scope. It also funds evaluations of promising practices in victim identification, supportive victim services, and investigations and prosecutions of offenders.
Human trafficking involves the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery, or for a commercial sex act where the person induced to perform the act is under 18 years of age (Trafficking Victims Protection Act [TVPA] of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106- 386, et seq.). It is a grave human rights abuse that harms families and communities, fuels organized crime, undermines public safety, and imposes large economic costs. NIJ collaborates closely with the Office for Victims of Crime, which provides a significant portion of the research funding via funds appropriated through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) for this statutorily required research (TVPA 2000, et seq.). Given the urgent need to protect American children from exploitation and abuse, studies on child exploitation have also been mandated and supported by separate congressional appropriations.
NIJ’s Human Trafficking Research Portfolio objectives include estimating the scope of the problem in the United States; identifying correlates, causes, and consequences; evaluating promising, replicable interventions; promoting collaborations across agencies and disciplines; and synthesizing and disseminating essential research findings for a variety of audiences. Research topics have included techniques and tools to identify victims in various settings and online; risk factors for victimization and how traffickers exploit them; survivor recovery needs and barriers; victim services; trafficking networks; technology and trafficking; investigation, case building, and prosecution strategies; and local and national prevalence estimation methods by trafficking type and industry.
NIJ-funded studies involve quantitative and qualitative methods, including surveys, instrumentation, measurement, and scale validation; advanced statistical modeling; secondary data analysis; case file review; firsthand field observations; interviews and focus groups; and applied impact analysis. The program strongly promotes multidisciplinary, survivor-informed research collaborations and practitioner partnerships to leverage the complementary strengths of various methods and areas of subject matter expertise. Program and practice evaluations emphasize implementation fidelity measurement and rigorous outcome designs to improve law enforcement, prosecutor, and judiciary responses to these crimes; enhance victim engagement and healing; and ensure accountability for individuals who commit crimes. Research findings have informed federal, state, and local legislation, including the reauthorizations of the TVPA, as well as practices in the criminal justice, public health, education, business, and victim services sectors.
Research Priority 1: Discover and validate best practices and tools to identify victims of sex and labor trafficking in the U.S.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 1.1 | What are the most reliable ways to identify victims of different types of labor trafficking (e.g., restaurant work, domestic service, forced marriage)? |
| Research Question 1.2 | What is the most reliable way to identify victims of different types of sex trafficking (e.g., street, online/hotel, familial, organized)? |
| Research Question 1.3 | How can law enforcement and prosecutors identify evidence of sex or labor trafficking during investigations of other crimes? |
Research Priority 2: Evaluate the effectiveness of programs providing services to survivors.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 2.1 | What are the key practices and core components of victim services that lead to the most sustainable, positive outcomes for survivors (e.g., promote healing/stabilization and prevent re-trafficking / continued abuse)? |
| Research Question 2.2 | What measurable improvements can we identify from talking to training staff who interact with survivors, such as members of the criminal justice, social services, and healthcare systems? |
| Research Question 2.3 | What services best support survivors of labor trafficking, and what gaps need to be addressed? |
Priority 3: Strengthen the science to measure human trafficking prevalence locally and nationally.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 3.1 | How can we create a validated, reliable system to collect and synthesize data to generate national estimates of prevalence? To what extent can rigorous local estimates be used to contribute to national estimates? |
| Research Question 3.2 | How can we maximize the use of existing data to generate more reliable estimates of trafficking prevalence? |
| Research Question 3.3 | Do we need different estimation methods depending on the type of trafficking, statutory differences among states, and case reporting practices? |
Priority 4: Improve the identification, investigation, and prosecution of traffickers and abusers/exploiters of children.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 4.1 | What investigative tactics and strategies most reliably increase the identification of trafficking victims? |
| Research Question 4.2 | How can the criminal justice system increase trust with victims to encourage participation in prosecutions and minimize victim burden? |
| Research Question 4.3 | What strategies (e.g., specialty courts, task force collaborations, victim/survivor approaches) most effectively increase positive case outcomes and lower community prevalence? |
Priority 5: Identify best practices to prevent trafficking in America.
| Number | Question |
|---|---|
| Research Question 5.1 | What outcomes can be measured to evaluate the effectiveness of trafficking prevention programs? |
| Research Question 5.2 | What labor trafficking prevention programs exist in the United States, what are their core components, and how do they vary by industry? |
| Research Question 5.3 | Should prevention programs focus on demand reduction or supply reduction, and which approach(es) produce the greatest reductions in trafficking and child exploitation? |
Reports -
- Understanding What Works in the Successful Identification, Investigation, and Prosecution of Labor Trafficking Cases in the United States
- An Empirical Analysis of the Intersection of Organized Crime and Human Trafficking In the United States
- A Practical Guide to Interviewing Potential Human Trafficking Victims
Datasets -
Use the links below to find additional information and resources related to human trafficking.