Examining The Trafficking Of Minors For Criminal Labor In The U.S. Through A Developmental Framework

• In Event: Victimization of Youth and Justice-Involved Persons

Abstract

Forced criminality is a form of human trafficking in which people are recruited, harbored, transported, or obtained for criminal labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. Victim service providers and legal advocates have identified a handful of cases involving youth trafficked for drug distribution, panhandling, theft, and other offenses, but research on the experiences of youth trafficked for forced criminality remains scarce. While federal policy recognizes that youth cannot consent to commercial sex work due to their stage of development, labor trafficked youth need to prove force, fraud, or coercion to receive protections under the TVPA. Despite Supreme Court decisions acknowledging adolescents' reduced criminal culpability, there's no legal framework to understand how developmental differences affect the threshold for coercion in forced criminality cases involving minors. This study aims to explore the types of illicit labor or services youth are trafficked for, recruitment methods and victimization, and how these cases align with the Supreme Court's classification for reduced culpability. A comparative case study of four forced criminality cases involving minors from victim service provider records will be used to address these questions.

Author

• Callie Hansson, Northeastern University