Director's
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Reentry
Programs for Women Inmates
The Voice Response Translator: A Valuable Police Tool
Telemarketing
Predators: Finally, We've Got Their Number
Truth
in Sentencing and State Sentencing Practices
Special Technologies for Law Enforcement and Corrections
Tracking Modern Day Slavery
Prosecutors'
Programs Ease Victims' Anxieties
The
Decline of Intimate Partner Homicide
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NIJ
Journal No. 252 • July 2005
Tracking Modern Day Slavery
NIJ Research in Progress Seminar, Trafficking
in Persons in the United States, Kevin Bales, grant
number 01IJCX0027, available on videotape
from NCJRS (NCJ 199458).
Most people believe that slavery ended in the United States
with the passage of the 13th Amendmentbut the importation
of people into this country for purposes of forced labor
and the sex trade continues in the 21st century. Researcher
Kevin Bales has documented the extent of this practice both
domestically and worldwide; his findings were presented
as part of NIJs Research in Progress seminar series.
Predictor of Human Development
Bales collects nation-by-nation data on the amount of
human trafficking into and out of each country and the
percentage of each countrys population that can
be considered in some way enslaved. These figures were
included in a study conducted by Robert B. Smith, currently
unpublished, which looked at predictors of human
development based on the United Nations Human Development
Index (the Index).
The Index gauges the quality of life for residents in
a given nation and combines economic well-being with social
factors (such as literacy) and health factors (such as
longevity). Bales anticipated that the extent of human
trafficking and slavery would be a predictor of poor human
development.
To Bales astonishment, the analysis showed that
human trafficking and enslavement were not just predictors
of a low standard of livingthey were by far the
strongest predictor. This was true in every region of
the world. Extent of democracy, amount of civil conflict,
level of national debt, and level of corruption, among
other factors, trailed participation in slavery as portents
of poor human development.
Preliminary Data
But what leads to such trafficking? Early statistical analysis
by Bales indicates several push factors; that
is, factors that seem to enable trafficking from
a given country. Those that appear to be significant are:
(1) government corruption, (2) high infant mortality, (3)
a very young population, (4) low food production, and (5)
conflict and social unrest. Preliminary data are less clear
in indicating factors that lead to human trafficking to
a country.
The Dark Figure
The dark figure is a term used by criminologists
to represent the difference between reports to authorities
of a particular crime and the number of instances of that
crime that probably go unreported. Generally, the more
petty the crime, the higher the dark figure. Bicycle theft
is often cited as an example of a crime with a high dark
figure. Some surveys have shown that up to 80 percent
of bicycle thefts are never reported to police. The dark
figure for murder, on the other hand, is expected to be
very low.
According to Bales, human trafficking, a crime of extreme
severity for the victims, has the kind of large dark figure
normally associated with misdemeanors. In 2001, for example,
there were 104 prosecutions for human trafficking in the
United States, involving 400500 identified victims.
Approximately 1,000 more victims were identified by social
service agencies but never brought to the attention of law
enforcement (for reasons such as fear of deportation). That
same year, a State Department study estimated that between
45,000 and 50,000 women and children were brought into the
United States for illicit purposes.[1]
Bales suggests that international development policymakers
need to place forced labor higher on their agendas. And
more needs to be done to identify this hidden
crime in the United States. Extensive consciousness raising
among the public, including educating citizens about suspicious
activities that they should be aware of in their own neighborhoods,
may help to lessen the trafficking of people within this
country.
NCJ 208708
For more information
Contact Kevin Bales at the Croft Institute for International
Studies, University of Mississippi, 304 Croft Institute,
University, MS 38677, 6629156533, bales@freetheslaves.net.
Notes
- Richard, Amy ONeill, International Trafficking
in Women to the United States: A Contemporary Manifestation
of Slavery and Organized Crime, Washington, DC: Central
Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence,
November 1999 (NCJ 181952).
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