Identify, Respond, Prevent: Addressing Human Trafficking Among Youth Involved in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Systems, Florida, 1993-2020

This study extended the understanding of human trafficking among youth involved in child welfare and juvenile justice systems by examining relationships among trafficking victimization, youth characteristics, and experiences in the juvenile justice, child welfare, and criminal justice systems. Using de-identified linked administrative data provided by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), and the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF), researchers:

informed identification of trafficking victimization by assessing the predictive utility of Florida's Human Trafficking Screening Tool, using ordered multinomial regressions and factor analysis;
informed response to trafficked youth by describing characteristics of those who experience trafficking during juvenile justice or child welfare supervision, or who enter juvenile justice supervision with prior human trafficking allegations, using descriptive statistics and linear and logistic regression;
informed secondary prevention for at-risk youth by identifying those at greatest risk of human trafficking throughout adolescence, and informed tertiary prevention among trafficked youth by identifying those at greatest risk of subsequent victimization following an initial trafficking allegation;
investigated the longitudinal association between human trafficking allegations and subsequent juvenile and adult criminal charges. Data collection included all youth served by DCF who were born in or after 1993, and whose records included at least one maltreatment allegation before February 29th, 2020.