Examining Individual and Contextual Correlates of Victimization for Juvenile Human Trafficking in Florida

Abstract

Despite extant literature on individual-level risk factors for sex trafficking among children and adolescents, little is known about the impact of social and ecological contexts on risk of human trafficking victimization. The purpose of this study was to examine the correlates signaling risk of human trafficking victimization at the individual, family, social, and community levels utilizing a sample of 40,531 justice-involved male and female youth, a small fraction of whom were suspected or verified victims of human trafficking between 2011 and 2015 ( N = 801, including 699 female and 102 male youth). Using this sample, we examined differences across individual, family, social, and community characteristics of youth involved in the juvenile justice system who have a history of trafficking victimization and youth without such histories. Series of logistic regression analyses were conducted using varying control groups, created through exact matching and randomized matching groups to address sample imbalances. These analyses indicate that, at the individual level, youth who had experienced childhood adversities were more likely to report human trafficking victimization. Sex differences were found regarding risk factors pertaining to the family and broader socio-ecological contexts. Female youth who had witnessed family violence had an antisocial partner or antisocial friends, or resided in a community with a greater proportion of the population being foreign-born or speaking English less than very well were at heightened risk for human trafficking victimization. Little evidence was found for community-level risk factors of victimization in this specific sample of justice-involved youth. These findings encourage more research to unpack the multilevel correlates of victimizations at the individual, family, social, and community levels, recognizing potential differences between female and male youth regarding the factors that put them at heightened risk for juvenile sex trafficking victimizations. Practice and policy should direct awareness and prevention measures to social and ecological contexts.