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Running head: HOMEWORK 2

Module 2 Homework Assignment

Andrew Uhlenkamp
Allied American University

Author Note
This paper was prepared for Senior Capstone, Module 2 Homework Assignment taught
by Daniel Chauvin.

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CRJ 499: Senior Capstone

Module 2 Homework Assignment
Directions: Using the topic you selected, please compose a research proposal.
Please submit the following:

A detailed research proposal containing all of the elements discussed in this module.
o

Your proposal should be submitted following APA format.

You should have a title and an introduction that is at least 1-2 paragraphs in
length.

Each paragraph should be 3-5 sentences in length.

Your proposal should state a problem/question that you will be researching.

In your problem statement, you should discuss who, what, why, and how your
research is important/relevant to criminal justice.

You should discuss research methods and formulate a conclusion.

The proposal should be of high quality. The more detailed and comprehensive the
proposal, the better. Your proposal should be no less than 2-3 pages in length. Be sure to
utilize outside sources and cite your work appropriately using APA format.

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Child Prostitutes- Putting an End to the Sex Trafficking of Minors.

When most Americans hear the words human trafficking they might think of foreign
areas theyve seen in the movies and on television programs. Places such as Southeast Asia in
places like Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and the Philippines, or in lesser developed Eastern
European countries wherein which sex trafficking rings operate by kidnapping and sometimes
buying children from their families and profiting off of them by renting their bodies to wealthy
Western businessmen and other clients who would pay to have sex with underage boys and girls.
In reality, however, America has a real human trafficking problem right here in the United States
that needs to be addressed.
In the year 2000, United States Lawmakers passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act
(TVPA)- and then reauthorized it in 2003, 2005, and 2013- in an effort to combat human
trafficking within its borders (Wilson & Dalton, 2008). Under the TVPA, human trafficking is
defined two ways. The first, and the one I will be focusing on most is sex trafficking in which a
commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to
perform such act has not attained 18 years of age. The second definition states that human
trafficking is, the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for
labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to
involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.
Well organized, underground trafficking networks, as well as underreporting prevents the
exact number of human trafficking victims from being realized, but between 2008 and 2012,
almost six thousand cases of human trafficking were reported to the National Human Trafficking
Resource Center (NHTRC, 2013). As this is likely only a fraction of actual cases of human
trafficking, it is imperative that awareness is increased and more resources and tools are

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dedicated to combating this terrible crime against humanity. More research needs to be done in
discovering the origins of human trafficking, and law enforcement agencies need the resources to
take them down from the source. This may include implementing new laws with enough reach to
take any human trafficking organizations down at the source. Law enforcement techniques also
need to advance to be able to investigate these crimes comprehensively and covertly. Taking
these organizations down completely- from top to bottom- is key to ensuring they cannot
victimize anyone ever again. Maintaining secrecy in the investigation is paramount, as
organizations are likely to move their operations or take them underground as soon as they
realize they have caught the attention of the law.
In order to accomplish this, cooperation is key. Victims can be interviewed to determine
what techniques were used to coerce them. Informants need to be discovered and exploited to
obtain as much information as possible without alerting the organization. Multi-jurisdictional
task forces need to work with all agencies from the municipal to the federal level, and even reach
across national borders to work with foreign law enforcement. Evidence needs to be compiled
and intelligence needs to be shared with all agencies involved to help build as strong a case as
possible. From there, pursuing these criminals cannot stop until they are apprehended. No
borders or other conditions should be able to provide them any kind of asylum once a warrant is
issued for their arrest. Special teams need to be equipped with the manpower, equipment, and
tactics necessary to use every means available in pursuit of justice.
At the same time, victim resources need to be made available for those who have been
affected by these criminals. Reintegration, job training, therapy, psychiatric treatment, foster
homes, and welfare programs all need to work to help bring this traumatized young boys, girls,

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and transgender youth back into a civilized, functional world. As much that can be done must be
attempted in an effort to return them to a healthy state of being.
To these ends, research starts with the victims and with law enforcement. Each victims
story needs to be heard and documentation should be made. Every investigator that confronts
these crimes needs to catalog their methods to help future investigations better understand what
does and does not work. Statistics and COMPUSTAT-style reporting can help identify hot spots
and identify which demographics and areas are most at risk. Therapists and victim advocates can
document the steps theyve taken to help reintegrate victims back into society. Therapy
techniques and other social resources can be tried and documented with their level of success and
failure to help future advocates know best how to help these victims as they surface.
Of all these factors, however, the biggest is awareness. Vice units at all levels of law
enforcement need to crack down on the Johns that solicit these kinds of services and harsh
laws need to be handed down. Counseling needs to be made available for those with sex-related
mental illnesses and strict, harsh sentences need to be handed down. Examples must be made and
a hard line has to be drawn, because without clientele, this industry wouldnt exist. Those who do
solicit human trafficking need to be interviewed to determine how they found their victims and
what motivated them to do so in the first place. Counseling centers, therapists, and corrections
facilities need to help determine what warning signs to look for when searching for victims as
well as Johns and how to step in and prevent these crimes from happening at all.

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References1.

Dalton, Erin and Wilson, Jeremy. August 2008. Human Trafficking in the Heartland:
Variation in Law Enforcement Awareness and Response. Journal of

Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume 24 Number 3. Pp. 296-313.

2. National Human Trafficking Resource Center. 2013. Statistical Overview. Taken from:
http://www.polarisproject.org/resources/hotline-statistics