Human Trafficking for Criminal Exploitation: The Failure to Identify Victims

Human trafficking for criminal exploitation is one of the lesser-known forms of human trafficking. The failure of the criminal justice system to identify the victims of this type of trafficking can lead to a failure to take the victim-centred approach to trafficking espoused in the international legal instruments that regulate the matter, an approach that emphasises the protection of victims and respect for their rights. In light of earlier findings of the existence of unidentified victims of human trafficking for criminal exploitation in several European countries — the UK, Ireland, Spain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands — a qualitative study was conducted, consisting of 37 in-depth interviews with practising criminal justice professionals and victim service providers in Spain. Because undetected victims of human trafficking for criminal exploitation are usually treated as offenders, the main aim of this research with professionals was to determine the causes of the criminal justice system’s failure to identify the victims of this specific form of trafficking in order to prevent them from remaining hidden victims.     

Revolving Roles in Drug-Related Crime: The Cost of Chronic Drug Users as Victims and Perpetrators

Numerous studies have established a strong connection between the use of illicit drugs and the commission of other illegal activities, including both predatory and property crimes. No study, however, has examined the cost of crimes associated with drug users both as victims and as perpetrators. In the present study, recent data were analyzed from a targeted sample of chronic drug users (CDUs) and a matched sample of non-drug users (NDUs) in Miami-Dade County, Florida, to estimate the incremental cost of crime associated with CDU. Two separate models were employed to estimate (1) the probability of being a victim or a perpetrator of crime and (2) the cost of crime for both situations. The cost measures were transformed to reduce the influence of extreme outliers, and a smearing technique was used to compare the cost of crime for CDUs relative to NDUs. The findings illustrate that criminal activity among CDUs is circular, extensive, and costly. Implications for law enforcement, criminal justice policy, and substance abuse treatment are discussed.     

The Police Reporting Behavior of Intimate Partner Violence Victims

In the current research, we draw on Canadian national data to examine the police reporting decisions of married and cohabiting intimate partner violence victims. Our analyses examine how police notification decisions are influenced by the demographic characteristics of victims and incident-specific factors. We find that the victims who contact the police more often live in a cohabiting relationship and with children. In contrast to predictions, we find that visible minority women more often call the police. Income, education, and employment status do not appear to shape the police reporting decisions of women. Finally, women who call the police are also likely to have experienced severe forms of violence including threats with weapons, injury, and the destruction of their property.     

Exploitation in Human Trafficking and Smuggling

This article explores the mechanisms that underpin human smuggling and trafficking. It argues for the continued analytical relevance of the distinction between “trafficking” and “smuggling”, as posited by the 2000 UN Protocols. While this distinction has come under sustained criticism from several authors over the last 15 years, it nonetheless continues to capture the essential features of two distinct phenomena (control over a human being vs. illegal entry into a country), and acknowledges the role of agency in smuggling. The paper goes on to discuss three different scenarios that may emerge as a result of the interplay between smugglers and smuggled persons, and it specifies the role of exploitation in each scenario. In addition, the paper offers empirical evidence of the key building blocks of smuggling — namely the search for reliable information and the reaching of an agreement in regard to the service offered — and of how smuggling can turn into trafficking. This work concludes by drawing out the relevant policy implications.     

Perceptions of the Police by LGBT Communities

The purpose of this study is to explore how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities perceive the police. Historically, relationships between LGBT communities and the police have been strained due to a legacy of discriminatory actions, although some police agencies have more recently taken steps to build relationships with LGBT communities. A survey was administered to a sample of LGBT and heterosexual respondents (n = 787) to measure perceptions regarding police fairness, policing qualities, policing outcomes, and police interactions with LGBT communities. Across a number of measures and scales, the perceptions of LGBT participants were significantly more negative than those of other participants, including when the variables of race, income, location type (e.g., rural, small town, suburban, urban), prior service as a police officer, and quality of prior interactions with the police, are controlled in multivariate modeling. Implications for police training and policy are discussed, as well as theoretical contexts that frame the results.     

Perceptions and personal experiences of unwanted attention among Portuguese male students

The present study investigated male perceptions and personal experiences of ‘unwanted attention’ (UA), as well as possible associations between perceptions and personal experiences of UA. Ninety-one male college students, from five Portuguese universities, were asked to indicate which of a continuum of 47 behaviours represented UA. Although UA, stalking and harassment are rarely addressed in Portugal, male college students shared a clear understanding of what behaviours constituted UA, with the identification of four main categories of UA behaviours: ‘aggressive’, ‘threatening’, ‘classic’ and ‘dysfunctional attachment’. Almost all participants (96%) reported personal experiences of at least one UA behaviour. There was a minimal relationship between perceptions and personal experiences of the individual behaviours. The findings highlight the widespread risk of male victimisation and the need to legitimise male complaints.     

Police Perceptions of Irrational Unstable Behaviours and Use of Force

Police identification of people experiencing mental illness is usually based on either the person having an official contact history with police or through observing behavioural indicators commonly associated with mental illness during an encounter. Police have voiced concerns with their ability to identify and respond to people experiencing mental illness in a timely way and report that they commonly resort to more coercive tactical options to resolve encounters. The present study employed a mixed method design to examine 286 police use of force incidents to investigate the association between force used on and by offenders displaying irrational-unstable behavioural characteristics. The irrational-unstable offenders were two times more likely to be perceived by police to have an apparent mental disorder and almost four times more likely to have a known mental health history; one in six had an official record of contact with mental health services. There were few differences in police and offender use of force, considering force as both a categorical and a continuous variable, while incident-level comparisons suggested that police force was generally proportional to offender resistance. Implications are discussed in terms of the need to redress limitations with the traditional police approach style.     

Police Reporting by Sexual Assault Victims in Western and in Non-Western Countries

The current research had the primary goal of investigating the difference in police reporting patterns by sexual assault victims in Western and in non-Western countries. The data for the present study were obtained from the International Crime Victimization Survey. The present work found a significant difference in police reporting behavior by sexual assault victims in Western and in non-Western countries. Gender, urban residency, and the number of offenders were important factors for victims in non-Western countries, but not for those in Western countries. On the other hand, a victim’s prior relationship with his or her offender and family income level were significantly related to police reports in Western countries, but not in non-Western countries.     

Jurors' Perceptions of Adolescent Sexual Assault Victims Who Have Intellectual Disabilities

Children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities are especially likely to be sexually abused. Even so, their claims are not likely to be heard in court, possibly because people assume that jurors will not believe them. We tested this assumption in a mock-trial study in which 160 men and women watched videotaped excerpts from an actual trial. As predicted, when the 16-year-old sexual assault victim was portrayed as mildly mentally retarded instead of as having average intelligence, jurors were more likely to vote guilty and had more confidence in the defendant's guilt; considered the victim to be more credible and the defendant to be less credible as witnesses; and rated the victim as more honest, less capable of fabricating the sexual abuse accusation, and less likely to have fabricated the sexual abuse accusation. Men and women were affected similarly by the disability manipulation, but women were generally more pro-prosecution in their case judgments and perceptions than were men. Finally, jurors who had more liberal views toward persons with disabilities were more likely than other jurors to make pro-prosecution judgments on measures of guilt. Implications for psychological theory and the law are discussed.     

Social Control,Trade Openness and Human Trafficking

Objective

Human trafficking has generated growing concern among both policy makers and researchers. However, research has been hampered by a lack of valid data and appropriate methods. Our study attempts to improve understanding of this issue by developing a macro-level social disorganization perspective which suggests that trade openness may be an important vector of human trafficking such that countries in transition between high and low levels are likely to face major challenges in controlling trafficking and will therefore be especially likely to experience high rates. Our analysis is based on United Nations panel data containing 163 time points for 43 countries from 2003 to 2008 where there is full information across the variables of interest.

Methods

The study first relies on semi-parametric fixed effects regression estimators to determine the “true” functional form of the relationship between trade openness and human trafficking. Next, we utilize random and fixed effects regression analysis and negative binomial regression analysis to assess the existence of an inverted U-relationship between trade openness and human trafficking.

Results

Consistent with our theoretical prediction, the spline approximation of the relationship between trade openness and human trafficking rates exhibits a clear inverted-U. The random and fixed effects regression results support the same conclusion. The turning point is estimated to be 1.995 and two sensitivity analyses confirm this finding through a parametric and a nonparametric bootstrap method with replications. Finally, using negative binomial and fixed effects negative binomial regressions, we again confirm that there is an inverted-U relationship between trade openness and human trafficking counts.

Conclusions

In line with a macro-level social disorganization perspective we argue that countries with relatively weak social control will have high rates of crime and deviance. We operationalize social control in terms of the openness of a country’s trade to the international community and as expected we find a curvilinear relationship between levels of trade openness and human trafficking.

     

Police Body-Worn Cameras: Perceptions of Law Enforcement Leadership

Many people are enthusiastic about the potential benefits of police body-worn cameras (BWC). Despite this enthusiasm, however, there has been no research on law enforcement command staff perceptions of BWCs. Given the importance that law enforcement leadership plays in the decision to adopt and implement BWCs, it is necessary to assess their perceptions. This is the first study to measure law enforcement leadership attitudes toward BWCs. The study relies on data collected from surveys administered to command staff representing local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in a large southern county. Among the major perceptual findings are that command staff believe BWCs will impact police officers’ decisions to use force in encounters with citizens and police will be more reluctant to use necessary force in encounters with the public. Respondents also believe that use of BWCs is supported by the public because society does not trust police, media will use BWC data to embarrass police, and pressure to implement BWCs comes from the media. Perceptions of the impact of BWCs on safety, privacy, and police effectiveness are also discussed.     

Trafficking in Human Beings. Ten Years of Independent Monitoring by The Dutch Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings

The report ‘Trafficking in Human Beings, Ten years of independent monitoring’ marked the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the post of National Rapporteur as an independent monitoring mechanism of the Netherlands’ efforts to combat human trafficking. It also marked ten years of making recommendations, 200 in all. Many of those recommendations have been acted upon, the importance of some has receded and others have been regularly repeated. The report outlines the progress made in efforts to tackle human trafficking in the Netherlands over the last ten years in light of those recommendations. In this contribution, the most important aspects of the report are summarised, with a focus on the three P’s (protection, prevention and prosecution), together with the additional P’s (punishment and partnership).     

Comparing Wife Abuse Perceptions Between Chinese Police Officers and Social Workers

Seventy-one Chinese social workers and 74 Chinese police officers residing in Hong Kong were surveyed on their gender-role attitudes, endorsement of wife abuse myths, and definitions of wife abuse. Results showed that compared to social workers, police officers held more conservative gender-role attitudes, endorsed more myths about wife abuse, and adopted more restrictive definitions of physical and psychological wife abuse. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that definitions of wife abuse were related to different predictors for these two groups of professionals. Among social workers, egalitarian gender-role attitudes were a significant predictor of broad definitions of physical wife abuse, but no significant predictor was found for psychological wife abuse. Among police officers, significant predictors of definitions of physical wife abuse included marital status, educational attainment, and endorsement of wife abuse myths; gender-role attitudes were the only significant predictor of definitions of psychological wife abuse.     

Talk to Me: An Analysis of Statutes Regulating Police Interviews of Child Victims

Children can be unreliable witnesses, and they are especially vulnerable to questionable interview practices. However, in some crimes like child sexual abuse, children may be the only person capable of providing testimonial evidence. States must balance the needs of bringing criminals who target children to justice and ensuring that due process is upheld to reduce the chances of false convictions. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has published a set best-practices for the interviewing of children to achieve this balance. This article conducts a statutory analysis to determine if states are currently following the recommendations of the OJJDP.     

Traffic Stop Encounters: Officer and Citizen Race and Perceptions of Police Propriety

The continued legacy of racism and discrimination contribute to racial and ethnic differences in attitudes about the police. This research investigates citizen reports of proper police behavior during traffic stops to understand how officer/citizen race and ethnic pairs influence reports of impropriety. Analysis of 6,301 citizen reports of traffic stop encounters with the police from a unique national survey reveals that net of other important explanatory variables, African-Americans are less likely than whites to report proper police behavior when they encounter officers of any race. In addition, citizen reports indicate that the white/black and black/white officer/citizen encounters are significantly less likely to result in a report of proper police behavior than the white/white officer/citizen pairing. The results show limited support for the importance of citizen race and officer/citizen pairs in determining perception of police behavior.     

National Human Trafficking Initiatives: Dimensions of Policy Diffusion

The implementation of criminal law involves formal law enforcement, education, and public outreach aimed at preventing criminal activity and providing services for victims. Historically, quantitative research on global trends has focused on a single policy dimension, potentially masking the unique factors that affect the diffusion of each policy dimension independently. Using an ordered‐probit model to analyze new human trafficking policy data on national prosecution, prevention, and victim‐protection efforts, we find that global ties and domestic interest groups matter more where international law is less defined. Although prosecution, mandated by the Trafficking Protocol, was relatively impervious to global ties and domestic interest groups, both trafficking prevention and victim protection were associated with these factors. Our findings also suggest that fear of repercussions is not a major driver of state actions to combat trafficking—neither ratification of the protocol nor levels of US aid were associated with greater implementation of antitrafficking measures.