New Research Lab Publication

The second peer-reviewed article to come out of the Human Trafficking was finally published with a research assistant as a co-author Julisa Sierra. The work for this article "Multi-Sector Human Trafficking Task Forces in the United States: Typologies and Overlapping Jurisdictions" began in 2018 with the support of a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) at Millikin University which funded Julisa's work. After numerous revisions the article was accepted in late 2021in the Journal of Modern Slavery and then it was finally available in early March.

This article focuses on the development and cooperation of human trafficking task forces, anti-trafficking institutions established to combat human trafficking around the US. We use task force as an encompassing term for over 200 human trafficking multi-sector coalitions, working groups, and/or commissions throughout all 50 states at different levels of jurisdiction. Our research determines the origin, scope, and variation of this anti-trafficking institution in the US. We created a typology of human trafficking task forces to show task force variation, the overlapping task force distribution, and task force leadership. We categorized seven different types of human trafficking task forces in the US from the grassroots level to those created by the Department of Justice. We found some task forces do not serve all victims but focus on sex trafficking and/or child victims, reaffirming the deserving versus-undeserving victim dichotomy. You can read the article open access here.

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