From villain to victim

Abstract

Research Summary Safe harbor laws are designed to redirect young victims of commercial sexual exploitation away from justice system involvement by prohibiting their arrest and prosecution as criminals. A quasi‐experimental design was used to compare prostitution‐related crime and sex abuse maltreatment trends at the county level in states that have implemented safe harbor laws with a comparison group of counties in states that have not implemented safe harbor laws. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) were used to measure prostitution‐related crime trends, while National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) data were used to measure sex abuse maltreatment trends. We used a multilevel Poisson regression model to analyze the change in prostitution‐related crime and sex abuse maltreatment trends in treatment and comparison counties over an 11‐year observation period (2005–15). Policy Implications Overall, the findings provide a striking perspective into the current U.S. landscape of dealing with the commercial sexual exploitation of juveniles. To that end, the decline in the number of overall and juvenile arrests across all prostitution‐related offenses suggests that safe harbor laws were effective in redirecting young victims away from system involvement. But the systematic provision of treatment services envisioned to go to these young victims has, to date, not become a reality. Nevertheless, these findings offer policymakers a foundation of evidence that can be used to engage intelligently and knowledgeably with regard to the current state of U.S. policy.

A Systematic Review of Specialty Courts in the United States for Adolescents Impacted by Commercial Sexual Exploitation

“…Specialized court programming offers adolescents an alternative to the traditional justice system that is often punitive in nature and lacking trauma-informed care, which can result in negative health outcomes (Hoefinger et al, 2019). As individuals experiencing CSE continue to be criminalized across the U.S.—often due to gaps in protections due to varying state legislation (Barnert et al, 2016)—we recognize that full decriminalization and community-led prevention and intervention efforts remain important mechanisms for supporting adolescentsoutside of the justice system (Gies et al, 2020; Hoefinger et al, 2019; Valadez, 2019). Further, adolescents and their families may experience protracted engagement with the judicial system as a result of their involvement in a specialty court.…”

“…Vulnerabilities to exploitation include having a marginalized identity due to a minority race, ethnic, gender, or sexuality as well as having histories of substance use, running away, homelessness, and adverse childhood experiences (Atteberry-Ash et al, 2019; Choi et al, 2015; Fedina et at., 2016; Franchino-Olsen, 2021; Hernandez, 2021; Naramore et al, 2017; Varma et al, 2015). While there is no decisive estimate of the scope or prevalence of CSE in the United States (Franchino-Olsen et al, 2022; Miller-Perrin & Wurtele, 2017), the overrepresentation of CSE-impacted adolescents in the juvenile justice and child welfare systems (Abrams et al, 2020; Franchino-Olsen, 2021; Gezinski, 2021) highlight a continuum of needs related to abuse and maltreatment (Gies et al, 2020; Hounmenou & O'Grady, 2019; Saar et al, 2015).…”