Imagine a buffet restaurant with more than 15 workers who have been forced to work at least six 13-hour days per week at a rate well below minimum wage. These individuals paid hard-scraped money to be brought to the United States for a better life and landed in a life of trafficking that they could not afford to leave. Situations similar to this forced servitude are occurring, hidden in plain sight, throughout the United States, which is why law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies are turning their focus toward labor trafficking.

Labor trafficking is human trafficking in the sense that it involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion along with other occurring elements of labor exploitation. Under the legal definition, no single element of labor exploitation alone rises to the level of labor trafficking. The crime of labor trafficking is defined by U.S. federal law as “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”¹

All populations and industries can be subject to labor trafficking, and known cases depict a wide variety of victims being trafficked in a diverse range of businesses and locations. Calculating the exact prevalence of labor trafficking incidents and the number of victims has been a challenge for researchers. However, some studies have been able to determine a notable prevalence of labor trafficking within certain industries and sub-groups of the population. For instance, certain sectors of labor, such as construction, janitorial or cleaning, and food processing have the highest rates of labor trafficking among unauthorized migrant workers.² Certain populations have vulnerabilities that can make them more susceptible to labor trafficking, such as immigration status, precarious living conditions, mental or physical disabilities, substance use disorders, homelessness or home instability, criminal histories, poverty, a lack of educational opportunities, unemployment or the lack of job training, family obligations, a history of domestic or sexual abuse, and a lack of access to social services.

IACP’s Labor Trafficking Training

In an effort to combat labor trafficking, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and AEquitas, with funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), U.S. Department
of Justice (USDOJ), has developed a training titled Effective Strategies to Investigate and Prosecute Labor Trafficking in the United States. This two-and-a-half-day training is targeted toward law enforcement investigators (local, state, or federal); prosecutors (local, state, or federal); and community crime threat or data crime analysts. This training will prepare participants to be better able to

• identify labor trafficking and the modes, means, and methods with which offenders recruit and control victims;
• investigate labor trafficking, proactively combating organized networks and individual exploiters;
• implement trauma-informed practices to support victims, encourage participation, and conduct effective interviews; and
• hold offenders accountable by employing offender-focused strategies and leveraging multiple avenues to justice.

The training was developed and reviewed by experts within the field who are currently engaged in investigating and prosecuting labor trafficking cases. The training covers topic areas such as trends in labor trafficking, victim identification, reactive and proactive investigations, trauma-informed response to victims, understanding and applying immigration relief tools to investigations, overcoming language barriers in a case, and avenues to justice in labor trafficking cases.

Labor trafficking is a complex area of investigation. Once the trafficking has been identified, there are defined strategies to proactively investigate, implement collaborative responses through civil and criminal authorities, and conduct interviews that minimize re-traumatization and maximize information gathering. In this vein, prosecutors may need to consider charging decisions that will appropriately address the offender’s criminal culpability, develop offender-focused trial strategies, recreate the reality of the crime by utilizing trauma-informed practices at trial, and leverage alternative avenues to justice. This training aims to help all agencies and human trafficking task forces be successful in investigating and prosecuting labor trafficking.

Conclusion

Although many agencies across the United States are successfully identifying, investigating, and prosecuting sex trafficking, labor trafficking is considered an emerging and challenging area for which federal and state laws are still being developed. This training, developed by the IACP and AEquitas, will enable investigators and prosecutors to proactively identify victims of labor trafficking and effectively investigate and prosecute offenders by using field-tested practices and a trauma-centered approach.🛡

Notes:

¹ Freedom Network USA, “Human Trafficking.”

² Sheldon X. Zhang et al., “Estimated Labor Trafficking among Unauthorized Migrant Workers in San Diego,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 653 (May 2014): 65–86.