Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Research into Human Trafficking often takes place from a single perspective, analyzing convicted traffickers from court filings, interviewing victims, or speaking with stakeholders and investigators. While each piece is critically important to understanding trafficking and its typologies, they rarely capture a wider approach to the human trafficking picture. Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis of the United States Sentencing Commission data, the Federal Justice Statistic Program, Pre-Sentence reports created by probation officers, and interviews with the traffickers themselves, this we help draw out unified story of who traffickers are, how they operate, and how they think of themselves, and how their criminal behavior influences sentencing, treating both sex and labor trafficking as distinct research populations with different motives and methods.