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Introduction
Theory? What does that have to do with the work done by law enforcement? Theory is fundamentally defined as a concept that supports a proposition. Williams and McShane (1994) purport that the study of criminological theory is an opportunity to analyze and critique the way others have looked at crime through history and as a product of the scientific approach. In almost all criminal justice degrees in higher education, there is a class or component on theoretical concepts. But are they relevant? First, theory is not common sense. It is based on the collection and analysis of data. Secondly, not all illegalities are performed due to rational choice. The law enforcement community has responded to the seeming changes in criminal offenders. Though individuals make decisions to steal, sell drugs, or commit violence against people, police are uncovering an increasing number of lawbreakers who suffer from acute psychological disorders exhibited by delusions and excessively intense conduct. Law enforcement organizations have responded to the seeming changes in the makeup of criminal offenders. Greater focus has been placed on socioeconomic status, neurophysiological conditions, social learning, and the social disorganization found in many of the nation’s urban areas.
Akers (2005) believes that the application of theory occurs not only in the formal criminal justice system but also in the informal system of private and public practice directed toward criminal and deviant behavior. Wartell and Gallagher (2014) conclude that when “crime analysts base their work on theory and evidence, and partner with environmental criminological researchers, many people benefit. This ranges from the cop on the street who is supported by the analyst and/or researcher, to the community who is getting more effective problem solving from their policing agency” (p. 385). Berg and Schreck (2022) suggest that applying a theory can help in explaining the causality of a crime, and hence, perhaps preventing further crimes by others, lessen victimization, address community concerns, and hold offenders responsible for their crimes. However, which criminological theory should be assessed and applied to a real crime problem in a community?
Earlier criminological research evaluated situational crime prevention and advocated focusing on the setting of crime rather than the crime typology. Clarke (1995) portends making criminal action less attractive to offenders, signifying that central to this enterprise is not the criminal justice system, but a host of public and private organizations and agencies — schools, hospitals, transit systems, shops and malls, manufacturing businesses and phone companies, local parks and entertainment facilities, pubs and parking lots — whose products, services and operations spawn opportunities for a vast range of different crimes.
Scott and colleagues (2019) imply that evidence-based theories should be aligned with functional law enforcement methods and have a victim-centered approach. They conclude that sexually trafficked people experience high levels of trauma that lead to heightened vulnerability for future victimization. Social cognition theory allows for a more in-depth understanding of person-environment adaptation. This theoretical proposition explains the presence and development of cognitive schemas (i.e., patterns of thinking) that influence the processing and interpretation of environmental information and behavior (O’Brien &Preble, 2023).
While theoretical crime theories can focus on identifiable characteristics relative to human trafficking, this essay will identify and break down the tenets of the Crime Triangle and how it is applied to the expanding discovery of human trafficking in America’s cities, towns, and villages. While no crime model is a one-size-fits-all solution, analyzing the values of the motivated offender, the suitable target, and the absence of capable guardians provides a lens that may result in a decline of this crime typology in this country’s communities.
The Changing Landscape for Services
There is limited dispute that local, state, and federal law enforcement are facing extraordinary tasks as they advance beyond the first quarter of the 21st century. Law enforcement organizations are implementing innovative and groundbreaking approaches in their agencies while opposing advancing crime obstacles that involve altering time and resources beyond standard calls for service. Communities are transforming from long-deep-rooted homogenous neighborhoods to those with shifting demographics generated by residential movement, socioeconomic variations, and transient occupational likelihoods. Gen X has passed the baton to millennials, who are creating policing techniques to tackle crime problems surrounding improved technology, social media, and the considerable progression in cases of human trafficking (Stocker, 2024).
Pati (2014) states that “human trafficking is widely recognized as the second largest criminal industry worldwide and a fast-growing transnational organized crime, aptly addressed in the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime and its supplementing protocols” (p. 33). In a 2023 report on data collection activities, the Department of Justice (DOJ) identified a total of 2,027 offenders who were referred to the US Attorney’s office in fiscal year 2021, a 49% increase over a ten-year period. In that same timeframe, the number of people prosecuted more than doubled (Lauger, 2023). Because the trafficking of humans involves universal corruption through illicit narcotics and drug distribution, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit. Moreover, men, women, and children of all ages and from all backgrounds can become victims of this crime, which occurs in every region of the world. The traffickers often use violence or fraudulent employment agencies and fake promises of education and job opportunities to trick and coerce their victims” (www.ohcrh.org). The Global Data Hub on Human Trafficking estimates that 50 million people are victims of modern slavery on any given day, and from this evaluation, 27.6 million were in situations of involuntary labor and 22 million were in a forced marriage (Thompson, Vagge, & Tiburcio-Carneiro, 2025). This form of human deprivation sees no boundaries and continues to encounter individuals and communities worldwide under a clandestine cloak of secrecy—in plain view.
Application of the Crime Triangle
An applied and functioning response to this crime typology necessitates operative policy, appropriate training, and unremitting instruction to recognize the subtleties of the total construct of human trafficking and the behavior of those involved in this method of unlawful activity. Employing the Crime Triangle can establish a foundation for police managers that assists in the organization and simulation of training that is favorable to street officers and investigators. Similarly known as the Problem Analysis Triangle, the Crime Problem Theory Triangle, and the Crime Prevention Triangle, it was initially proposed by criminologists Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson (2015) when describing the routine activities correlated with crime. These academicians propose that for a crime to happen, it demands three separate and distinct entities: a suitable victim, a motivated offender, and the lack of capable guardians. When one of these components is removed from the triangle, a crime cannot occur. The model has been employed to explain how to reduce different forms of street crimes and to improve various quality-of-life issues (Heider & Iamtrakul, 2028; Katz, Webb, & Schaefer, 2001). When aligning the theoretical proposition to human trafficking, it allows for substantial insight into the potential victims, those influenced to be offenders of criminal activity, and the environments in which crime exists.
Spotting the locality of human trafficking begins with recognizing that no neighborhood is void of this type of crime, and it involves individuals who target the vulnerable. Human trafficking is repeatedly uncovered in zones where sex workers and exotic dance clubs are found (Kuchynski, 2013). Exploitation and manipulation of women and children in the commercial sex trade are foreseeable (Franchino-Olsen, 2021), and casualties of this form of servitude are characteristically witnessed in massage parlors, escort services, and businesses that accommodate males with sexual services (Rosenow & Munk, 2023). Nevertheless, the enslavement of victims for servant labor is likewise arranged in nail salons, hotels, restaurants, truck stops, and on farms. These situations are found in cities, suburban communities, and throughout rural areas. No residential environment is immune to these types of crimes. Because of the extensive duties of law enforcement agencies across the nation, police officers can find themselves involved in these cases during traffic stops and during customary calls for service. Some indicators of locations of human trafficking include multiple persons living in the same packed accommodations, insufficient living conditions, and persons living with their employers.
When there is an absence of capable guardians, such as the police and community stakeholders, the capacity to exploit human trafficking increases (Rafferty, 2013). Situational awareness can be realized when the tools are made available to those in the position of identifying suspicious behavior. The “See Something, Say Something” campaign, made popular by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2010 (Sylvia, 2010), was implemented to raise public awareness and to promote the value of the eyes and ears of private citizens. Somerville (2009) points to the philosophy of community policing and suggests that citizens need to get more involved to have a greater sense of the issues that communities face when it comes to all types of crime. The importance and functionality of capable guardians are outlined by Hollis-Peel and Welch (2014), who purport that the presence of a capable guardian serves as the key component in the crime event model, one that can disrupt, either directly or indirectly, the interaction between a motivated offender and a suitable target.
The next segment of the crime triangle involves the motivated offender. There is no existing outline for individuals who are trafficking victims of this type of violent crime. Outlining a single depiction of an offender allows human traffickers to screen their actions and preserve their constraints on their vulnerable and powerless targets. To imply that one group over another is wholly accountable for these crimes would be careless and should be avoided. The typecast of these offenders represented by the mass media as the organized crime leader is gravely erroneous. The well-groomed “pimp-looking” male is likewise flawed. DHS states,
“A wide range of criminals, including individuals, family operations, small businesses, loose-knit decentralized criminal networks, and international organized criminal operations, can be human traffickers. Often, the traffickers and their victims share the same national, ethnic, or cultural background, allowing the trafficker to better understand and exploit the vulnerabilities of their victims. Traffickers can be foreign nationals and U.S. citizens, males and females, family members, intimate partners, acquaintances, and strangers” (Stocker, 2024).
Human traffickers can be anyone; they may be found in every socioeconomic status. The trafficker engages in this type of lawbreaking for power, control, and economic gain (Schloenhardt, 1999). Awareness of community dynamics is favorable when detecting possible perpetrators.
One of the most helpful and successful methods to identify potential offenders is to evaluate their relationship with likely targets. As with most crimes, there is an offender-victim relationship. This connection clues law enforcement into interactive behaviors that are outside the norm of traditional relationships. Therefore, because of their probing analytical nature, police officers can identify indicators that could shed light on their interest in the conduct of traffickers and their prey. Evidence may include an employer holding identification papers of an employee, a dominant person not allowing others to speak for themselves, and the employment of fear factors on others to stifle socialization and freedom of movement (Farrell & Pfeffer, 2014). The last side of the triangle is linked with the most significant factor, the victim. This victimization typology is unlike any conventional example of crimes against people. The victims of human trafficking involve all ages, genders, races, and ethnicities. However, according to the Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative (2021), the largest group of victims is between the ages of 9 and 17. For adults, the target group is between 30 and 38 years old. Age differs depending on role expectations, such as sex trafficking or forced labor. Signs of abuse and oppression can be identified by evidence of physical and psychological manipulation, scripted and learned answers to police, teachers, or other authoritative figures, submissive or nervous behavior, and children under the age of 18 working in the sex industry. Additionally, peripheral clues such as depression, extreme quietness, and failure to make eye contact may present themselves. Warning should be taken for cultural differences that develop across domestic and international borders.
Practice, Preparation, and Results
While there is no simple solution to most crime problems, human trafficking offers extraordinary dynamics that are exclusive to this category of lawbreaking, and thus requires individuals in the community, community partners, and police agencies to collaborate toward enforcement and resolutions. Realistic approaches in reducing this human rights problem can be applied to each of the crime triangle’s borders with meaningful outcomes. But how can these methods be realized?
The decrease of human trafficking begins with comprehending the construct of victimology. Langhorn (2021) stated that “an extension of consideration of macro-causal factors, an important consideration in cases of human trafficking, is the interdependency between victims and offenders. Understanding the correlation between victims and offenders provides policymakers and law enforcement agencies with opportunities for intervention. It also enables greater understanding of the enablers of human trafficking” (p. 2). Clawson and Dutch (2008) believe that the current stereotypes portray the victims of human trafficking as naïve juvenile girls from foreign countries who are controlled, lied to, and often kidnapped, and forced into prostitution. However, this stereotype does not provide an accurate lens on the entire landscape of victims.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (n.d.) considers those harmed by this crime typology to possess several common indicators, including physical signs such as scars, malnutrition, and poor personal hygiene. Behavioral markers include anxiety and submissiveness, the reluctance to speak freely, expressions of distrust, and the avoidance of eye contact. Lastly, situational clues involve substandard living conditions, verbal abuse, and unwarranted supervision. Identifying these signals and bringing them to the attention of law enforcement authorities is one way to intervene and decrease this form of illegal servitude.
Leclerc and Reynald (2017) identify guardianship as one of the core situational crime prevention strategies employed to disrupt or prevent crime. A capable guardian is therefore any person whose presence reduces the likelihood that crime will occur, in a formal or informal capacity who is likely to be on the location when a crime occurs and is able to protect potential targets of crime during their routine activities. Moreover, a guardian can therefore be a neighbor, passerby, relative, teacher or any person who is present when the opportunity for crime arises, and by virtue of their proximity to the potential crime event, have the greatest potential to control crime by discouraging offenders.
As Peel purported, the guardians of the community are the police (Stocker, 2020). Local police understandings of human trafficking and their awareness of relevant anti-trafficking practices can be effective in addressing those crimes aligned with human coercion and oppression (Farrell, 2012). This consciousness can be achieved through training and educational outcomes focused on the complexities of these offenses.
Awareness campaigns are an effective way of informing the public of specific causes to create connections between individuals and social issues to persuade engagement. A literature search of organizations that combat human trafficking resulted in a list of sixty-five separate and distinct agencies and groups globally, focused on those who are oppressed, enslaved, and in crisis. They include governmental, non-governmental, faith-based, and privately funded agencies.
CAST, the Coalition to Abolish Slavery, is a Los Angeles-based organization whose mission is to serve survivors of human trafficking by providing policy, training, and research through survivor leadership programs (Musto, 2008). Hagar International works with women, young adults and children who have been rescued or escaped from sex and labor trafficking, domestic violence, acid burns and torture throughout Southeast Asia (Nancarrow, Webb, Larsen, & Wrigley, 2013). The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee is a grassroots sex workers organization that focuses on women’s rights in the city of Kolkata’s red-light district (Dasgupta, 2017). The Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS) is a Harlem-based non-profit organization that provides services to female victims who were sexually exploited and domestically trafficked (Plourde, Ippoliti, Nanda, & McCarraher, 2017).
According to Marquez and Lyon (2015), “the Blue Campaign is the unified voice for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts to combat human trafficking. It strives to protect the basic right of freedom and to bring those who exploit human lives to justice. It is accomplished through raising public awareness about human trafficking, leveraging partnerships to educate the public to recognize human trafficking and report suspected instances. Lastly, the Campaign offers training to law enforcement and others to increase detection and investigation of human trafficking, and to protect victims and bring suspected traffickers to justice”. One example of the success of the Blue Campaign is the arrest of three traffickers in 2020 in South Fulton, Georgia, who were involved in a sex trafficking ring operated at a local residence. The training provided to law enforcement is credited with providing greater awareness of these types of criminal activity (WGXA, 2020). In 2022, seven members and associates of the MS-13 street gang were convicted of sex trafficking after taking in a 13-year-old runaway and coercing her into commercial sex acts in Maryland and Virginia (News 4 Washington, 2022).
Conclusion
The victims of human trafficking comprise males and females, all races, all ethnicities, and all socioeconomic statuses. Still, the DOJ purports that human traffickers also prey on those who are economically susceptible, who may be homeless, unemployed, and living in poverty. Victimization can result from failure to meet basic needs and inadequate healthcare. Offenders target the exposed and submit to them the ability to acquire marginal sustainability in return for a life of indentured servitude, debt bondage, or sex.
The crime triangle provides a theoretical model with a plausible solution to the human trafficking crisis. Each segment of this criminological construct allows the practitioner to evaluate the level of capable guardians in a specific location in a community. As crime typologies change, as they always have, so must the relevance of theory and how it associates with the people and needs of a locality.
Training and education in human trafficking begin with recognizing the signs that are apparent and realizing the latent evidence. No community is unaffected from human trafficking. The National Human Trafficking Hotline is 1-888-373-7888.
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