Understanding What Works in the Successful Identification, Investigation, and Prosecution of Labor Trafficking Cases in the United States, 2021-2022

This objective of this study was to identify promising practices in labor trafficking identification and response in five U.S. counties that have demonstrated innovation and commitment to addressing the problem of labor trafficking. Innovative strategies included dedicated labor trafficking investigators, specialized units within county district attorneys' offices, and a statewide multidisciplinary team approach that incorporates efforts to identify and respond to labor trafficking. Through a review of closed case records and in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 73 anti-labor trafficking stakeholders, this study sought
to investigate how labor trafficking came to be prioritized in these
jurisdictions and how labor trafficking response is situated in the unique
policy, legal, and cultural frameworks of each participating county. This
project also explored the ways in which labor trafficking enforcement is
understood and operationalized as distinct from sex trafficking enforcement and
identifies the challenges addressing labor trafficking with which these five
U.S. counties continue to struggle despite their prioritization and established
frameworks. Research questions for this study were:

Are there patterns in the characteristics of labor trafficking cases identified by law enforcement at the state and local level?
How does the identification and investigation of labor trafficking cases differ from that of sex trafficking cases in terms of case characteristics, collaboration within and among agencies, case resolutions, and case outcomes?
What are the features of successful labor trafficking investigations?

This collection contains case-level (DS1) and victim-level (DS2) data extracted from closed case records obtained from agencies involved in the study, and qualitative coding summaries containing direct quotes from the interview respondents (DS3). Due to disclosure risk, verbatim interview transcripts were not archived.