A Dark Figure Crime: Analyzing the Socioeconomic and Geographical Factors of Human Trafficking and Its Statistics
Aim
Human trafficking has become an increasingly concerning public health issue, connecting factors at both the individual and societal levels (Sprang et al., 2022). From forced labor to sexual exploitation and child sex trafficking, hundreds of thousands of people become victims of human trafficking every year. Human trafficking involves the use of fraud, force, or coercion accompanied further by deception, abduction, or the abuse of power (Schroeder et al., 2022). While the act of trafficking can often go unnoticed by the general public, the statistics regarding it do not lie. Victims of trafficking include individuals from US citizens to undocumented immigrants and are of a variety of age demographics (Rothman et al., 2017). Other factors that influence victimization include geographical location, gender, and personal life experiences. The socioeconomic and locational factors that lead to the victimization, as well as the demographics and venue locations where trafficking occurs, will be explored here.
Question and Problem
Through this analysis, the question of what socioeconomic, geographical, and demographic factors make individuals vulnerable to trafficking and how do human trafficking offense statistics compare to other crimes.
Scope
This analysis will be done using the trafficking statistics and data for the United States as a whole as well as the state of Pennsylvania.
Methods
The data used here comes from a variety of sources. One major source includes data from the Polaris Project, which is a NGO that works to educate and prevent trafficking in America. Additional data sources used here were from The Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC), National Human Trafficking Hotline, the United Judicial System of Pennsylvania, FBI Crime Data Explorer, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Results
United States
The following graphs represent human trafficking at the country level. Majority status of victims, popular factors that have lead to victimization, and the different demographics of individuals involved in trafficking are represented here.
Pennsylvania
The analysis conducted specifically on the state of Pennsylvania shows the counties with the highest human trafficking offenses, popular venues where trafficking has taken place, and a comparison between human trafficking offenses to other reported offenses in specific counties to the state police.
| State Police | Total Offenses | Crimes Against Persons | Human Trafficking Offenses | Non Human Trafficking Offenses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lebanon County | 978 | 281 | 4 | 974 |
| Adams County | 1402 | 498 | 1 | 1401 |
| Berks County | 1630 | 523 | 1 | 1629 |
| Fayette County | 3831 | 1212 | 1 | 3830 |
| Huntingdon County | 1068 | 425 | 1 | 1067 |
| Lackawanna County | 593 | 202 | 1 | 592 |
| Philadelphia County | 1043 | 342 | 1 | 1042 |
| Washington County | 858 | 279 | 1 | 857 |
| Wyoming County | 2033 | 508 | 1 | 2032 |
| Allegheny County | 1010 | 202 | 0 | 1010 |
Main Conclusions
As for the United States as a whole, adult females seemed to make up the majority of victims of human trafficking and Recent Migration/Relocation was the risk factor/vulnerability that influenced the most victims. Some of the most popular demographics of individuals involved with trafficking included people ages 15-24, having a higher education, cash-based employment, being married, and living in a rural area. These results exhibit that there is no one “type” of victim of human trafficking. Victimization can happen to any person of any background and demographic.
In Pennsylvania, the county with the highest percentage of human trafficking offenses was Lancaster, which is located in the Southern part of Pennsylvania. Counties in the southern part of the state make up the highest perentages of human trafficking offenses. Additionally, the second most popular known venue where trafficking took place was Illicit Massage/Spa Business, with Other (venues not specified) making up the highest majority. Human Trafficking offenses were also seen to make up a very small portion of the total offenses attended to by state police in different Pennsylvania counties. These results portray that human trafficking in Pennsylvania is mostly accounted for in the southern part of the state, with there being several different venue types where trafficking occurs. Furthermore, human trafficking offenses make up only a small number of crimes addressed by the state police in several Pennsylvania counties.
The analysis and data presented here would be able to benefit state and local government officials, as they would be able to create laws that better support victims. Additionally, organizations that support victims and their recoveries may also benefit from this study, as they would be able to better understand the situations that these victims have endured. Better understanding the situations that victims find themselves in and determining hot-spots of trafficking would allow for adequate support to be provided to victims of human trafficking at both the state and country levels.
Trafficking is known to be a “dark figure” crime, with there being hundreds and thousands of victims that are just not known about. As much as our society would want there to be more research done on human trafficking, accurate data does not exist simply because not every victim of trafficking can be accounted for. There truly is no solution to the problem of human trafficking, as it is such a wide-spread crime with victims that may never be known about. More timely court case processing, expansion of victim recovery resources, and better understanding the circumstances that lead to individuals becoming involved with trafficking would help to better this problem, however, these are not solutions to this ever-growing public health concern.
References
Peer-Reviewed Sources
Rothman, E., Stoklosa, H., Baldwin, S., Chisolm-Straker, M., Price, R., Atkinson, H. (2017). Public Health Research Priorities to Address US Human Trafficking. American Public Health Association, 107 (7), 1045-1047.
Schroeder, E., Edgemon, G., Aletraris, L., Kagotho, N., Clay-Warner, J., Okech, D. (2022). A Review of Prevalence Estimation Methods for Human Trafficking Populations. Sage Journal, 137 (1), 46-52.
Sprang, G., Stoklosa, H., Greenbaum, J. (2022). The Public Health Response to Human Trafficking: A Look Back and a Step Foward. Sage Journals, 137 (1), 5S-9S.
Data Sources
CTDC. (2022). The Global Victim-Perpetrator Synthetic Data Set [Data set]. Retrieved from: https://www.ctdatacollaborative.org/page/global-synthetic-dataset
Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime Data Explorer. (2022). National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) Tables [Data file]. Retrieved from: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#
National Human Trafficking Hotline. (2021). Pennsylvania Statistics by Year [PDF and data file]. Retrieved from: https://humantraffickinghotline.org/en/statistics/pennsylvania
Polaris Project. (2021). Polaris Analysis of 2021 Data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline [PDF and data file]. Retrieved from: https://polarisproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Polaris-Analysis-of-2021-Data-from-the-National-Human-Trafficking-Hotline.pdf
The United Judicial System of Pennsylvania. (2023). Cracking Down on Human Trafficking in Pennsylvania [PDF and data file]. Retrieved from: https://www.pacourts.us/news-and-statistics/news/news-detail/1124/cracking-down-on-human-trafficking-in-pennsylvania
UNODC. (2021). Trafficking in Persons-Detected Trafficking Victims [Data set]. Retrieved from: https://dataunodc.un.org/dp-trafficking-persons