Human Trafficking Research Lab @Augustana University

I finally submitted the revisions for our adjudication article! I wanted to get it done before school started last week but since I am new and developing a new course my syllabus preparation took longer than anticipated pushing the revisions to this article back. Still I am happy to move my post-it on my publication board from revise and resubmit to under review again. Hopefully after the second round of revisions this article will be accepted.  While I was working on the revisions an interesting story was published in the local news media  Macon County woman says justice denied in trafficking case which highlighted how human trafficking cases are charged and adjudicated for lesser sentences in Central Illinois. This case is exactly the type of case our research focuses on in Central Illinois. Police charged a variety of offenses including domestic battery, promoting prostitution, sexual assault, felon in possession of a weapon and breaking and entering. Then the case was ple...

We have a chapter on "Human Trafficking and Forced Criminality in Wartime" that is forthcoming in later 2026 in an edited volume on Crime and Justice in Wartime Ukraine published by Routledge. The book now has a cover and website  and it is exciting to see this edited volume come to fruition. Our chapter features highlights from our NSF sponsored research. We examine new aspects of human trafficking that have manifested after Russia's invasion especially forced criminality, an emerging aspect of human trafficking that is prevalent in the Russian occupied territories. We will be participating in a book panel at ASEEES in November talking about the book so it will be great to meet the other authors in person and discuss different aspects of the book.

The Human Trafficking Research Lab (HTRL) was established in 2018 and moved to Augustana University in 2026. Our goal is to transform undergraduate service-learning projects into cutting edge human trafficking research. The HTRL team at Augustana University conducts policy relevant research on human trafficking within the United States and internationally. We are the only undergraduate research lab focused on human trafficking in the state of South Dakota and one of a handful in the entire United States, making this applied research experience truly unique for Augustana students. Through the  Human Trafficking Research Lab,  we formulate human trafficking research at Augustana by training students to collect, analyze, and write up data results and disseminate these findings to the academic and local community. At Augustana University, our mission provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning an...

Big news, the Human Trafficking Research Lab has moved to Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota! We are working to get our research space set up here and I am hoping to be able to hire a student research assistant so that we can continue our localized human trafficking research in South Dakota. I also have lofty goals of learning more about possible changes to the law to make it more victim-centered and hope to join a human trafficking task force in the state.  Trying to get some of the funds transferred to Augustana has been a four month long challenge but I am hoping it will work out (keep your fingers crossed for us). Millikin said I could not employ my previous research assistant past May, but thankfully I am able to pay her myself over the summer our of my own pocket so we can continue our narrative policy framework project. I am invested in continuing this research and supporting my previous research assistant to hopefully present at a conference in the future. It...

In June we received another round of revisions on our adjudication research so I have been diving into those this past week to try to get them the article revised and resubmitted before the semester starts. We had a new reviewer who wants us to tackle and clarify some new things and add a methodological appendix which is one of my favorite things! They also wanted us to be more consistent in our terminology and clarify differences with regional characteristics and factors. So I will be doing my best to add all of those things and not push the manuscript too far over the page limit. Hoping for an article acceptance soon! 

Finally, getting back to some of the research from our NSF sponsored research project on human trafficking during the war in Ukraine. It has been a hectic summer and so many decisions came in May and early June when I was traveling with students and did not have time to work on them. Then in July we moved 600 miles across the country so I am trying to get caught up in August before the academic year starts at my new institution. This week I had the opportunity to resubmit our human trafficking hotline article. This article utilizes unique data from 88,939 calls received by the National Toll-Free Migrant and Anti-Trafficking Hotline 527 from September 2021 to September 2023-before and after the full-scale invasion. We explored who accesses the human trafficking hotline during war and how does insecurity for potential migrants manifest during war as they navigate displacement. We determined that hotline data can be a precursor to the human trafficking patterns that follow because it can ...