Analyzing Data from Douglas County Illinois

As a part of the data collection process for the lab’s analysis of the adjudication of human trafficking in Illinois, I have recently analyzed arrest records for Douglas County, with a specified focus on cases pertinent or possibly relating to human trafficking. When focusing on cases, I had a clear list of relevant arrest types, primarily focusing on domestic violence arrests, sexual violence arrests, and sex crimes in general.  When analyzing Douglas County’s data, it was intriguing to see the particular aspects of data that Douglas County requires when reporting arrests.  Specifically, the race of arrestees was not recorded for the entirety of the records analyzed. This is interesting, as race and gender are particular aspects of the arrest data that we attempt to analyze. Thus, Douglas County’s records are much less thorough than many other counties in Illinois, as the majority require the reporting of the race of the arrestees. In addition to this interesting finding, the Douglas County data has particular patterns that are interesting to analyze. In particular, the prevalence of sexual violence arrests is particularly concentrated to sexual violence against minors. In addition, there is a clear pattern of the gender of arrestees, with men appearing significantly more than females in relevant cases. Moreover, the cases involving females are all domestic battery assaults, with no explicitly sexual or soliciting charges. This adds an interesting layer to the analysis of the cases in Douglas County, with the data skewing drastically towards men committing sexual crimes in the county. 

Another interesting aspect of the Douglas County data is the prevalence of recidivist offenders for identical/similar crimes. There were multiple instances of arrestees recorded as being arrested for domestic battery and later charged with sexual crimes. While these two arrests can indicate separate crimes with a singular perpetrator, I believe it may be more realistic to view these arrests as singular occurrences with further charges added, resulting in additional arrests. Thus, it will be beneficial to further research these specific arrests to attempt to identify whether multiple or a singular crime has occurred.  

The final interesting finding form Douglas County’s data is the uptick in relevant cases in 2010.  Before 2010, there were typically 1-5 cases relevant to our research.  After 2010, the relevant case number increased exponentially, further adding the number of relevant cases each year. I tend to believe that this uptick in relevant cases isn’t actually evident as an actual increase in relevant cases, but rather, an increase in the number of arrests actually made relevant to the crimes.  n other words, the uptick in reported cases relating to human trafficking is most likely attributed to better policing in Douglas County, not necessarily an exponential increase in these crimes occurring. This brings into question the efficacy of the Douglas County policing quality before 2010.

Jadon Cox

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests

Image
For the past few weeks, I have been working on sending Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA) requests to different counties in central Illinois. By sending these requests, we are hoping to receive the jail bookings and arrest data in these counties over the past twenty years as they relate to human trafficking cases. Though most counties accept a letter of request, some have specific forms they require to be filled out in order to receive the information we require. Thus, I have been doing research on each county to determine not only if they have specific forms required, but to determine which office would best be able to fulfill my request, as each request cannot be sent to the same offices in each county. Most State Attorney’s offices are able to help us with our requests, but not all. For some counties, the Sheriff's office holds this information. So, through trial and error, I have worked to send out these requests to whichever office is best suited to help us. Due to the natur
Read more

Human Trafficking Awareness Month Panel Discussion on Education

Image
We just wrapped up our fifth annual Human Trafficking Awareness Month panel discussion at Millikin University and the event was a huge success. Around 40 students, faculty, staff and community members came out before the big snow storm to learn about the intersections of human trafficking education and training. We hosted Matthew Fuller, Human Trafficking Training Specialist at the Center for Prevention of Abuse in Peoria, Cindy Kuro, Prevention Educator from the Set Free Movement-Macon County, and Cheris Larson, Program Manager at Project OZ in Bloomington. The panel discussion focused on the educational opportunities, prevailing pedagogies on human trafficking, challenges to teaching about this hidden crime, and how to combat disinformation through learning opportunities. The panel discussion was sponsored by the Set Free Movement-Macon County and the Department History and Political Science at Millikin University. We are thankful for our wonderful advocates and educators in Central
Read more

HTRL Tote Bags

Image
Since our grant is ending this year, the students and I brainstormed a few fundraising ideas to be able to support paid research assistantships in the Human Trafficking Research Lab for future students. We thought tote bags would be a great way to achieve this and so the students and I designed an eye catching bag that would educate people wherever it went. If you donate more $30 to the Human Trafficking Research Lab at Millikin we will send you one of these tote bags that will support future undergraduate research in the lab and help you raise awareness to human trafficking everywhere you go!  The bags are 100% cotton and printed locally from Oakwood Screen Printing based right here in Decatur, Illinois.  If you would like to donate to the Human Trafficking Research Lab at Millikin University you can make a donation in three different ways: 1) Make a credit card/debit card/EFT gift online at www.millikin.edu/give . Choose the “Millikin Fund” icon box and write “Human Trafficking Resea
Read more