Counting the Concealed: Efforts to Estimate the Prevalence of CSEC in Washington

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Identifying and addressing the needs of Commercially Sexually Exploited Children (CSEC) has become a focus of many local and national initiatives. While increased funding has become available to provide needed services for CSEC, determining the efficacy of identification and prevention initiatives has proven challenging due to unrefined estimates of the prevalence of CSEC. This presentation describes work underway in Washington State to begin to address this limitation.

Designing and implementing methodology to more accurately estimate CSEC is part of the Project Respect initiative developed by the Washington based Center for Children and Youth Justice. In order to assist researchers developing their own initiatives to estimate the prevalence of CSEC, this presentation will detail the process that occurred in Washington and the lessons learned. Development of a CSEC identification checklist and the final checklist used by community service providers, juvenile courts, and child welfare agencies will be shared. Interactive online data collection tools and data quality assurance standards will be discussed as we well as suggestions on ways to engage stakeholders. Finally, initial estimates of the prevalence and demographic characteristics of CSEC in five targeted Washington counties based on data collected between February 1 and April 30, 2014 will be reported.

Author

• Sarah Lynn Veele, Washington State Center for Court Research