CSEC Youth in the Juvenile Justice System

As I have noted in my previous posts, child trafficking advocacy in recent years has focused primarily on diverting victims from the juvenile justice system and handing responsibility over to the child welfare system. But in practice, what does that look like?

HB 3, Kentucky’s 2013 human trafficking legislation, required juvenile justice agencies to take certain steps to identify youth in their system who may have been victims of trafficking. The first agency affected was the Court Designated Worker program (CDW) in the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), the statewide court system in Kentucky. The CDWs take all complaints on all juveniles for any kind of delinquent offense or status offense, regardless of who is filing the complaint (law enforcement, schools, parents, etc.) After taking the complaint, the CDW conducts a preliminary inquiry into the incident; this preliminary inquiry includes a number of questions about the youth’s background and the youth’s perspective on why the offense occurred. CDWs had this responsibility prior to the passage of HB 3, but HB 3 gave them additional responsibilities to screen for potential human trafficking victimization during this intake process. The legislation required Court Designated Workers (CDWs) to perform an initial human trafficking screening on all juvenile cases and, if the youth answers affirmatively to certain screening questions, refer the case to child welfare for an investigation. The CDWs provide an additional early screening point before youth progress into the juvenile justice system, which is particularly important given that many CSEC youth may be picked up by law enforcement and that law enforcement officer may not be able to identify the youth as a potential trafficking victim.

HB 3 anticipates that not all CSEC youth will be identified at the front-end of the juvenile justice system, and therefore requires the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) to build additional trafficking screening questions into their intake processes. Youth are placed in DJJ custody when they are detained before their court proceedings, or when they are sentenced to detention or long-term commitment for a delinquent offense. DJJ has developed a human trafficking protocol to identify trafficking victims when they enter detention centers or residential placement. If DJJ identifies a trafficking victim at any point, the agency must file a report with child welfare, notify the youth’s attorney, and petition the court to transfer custody of the trafficked youth to DCBS. The only exception to this rule is if DJJ determines the child poses a threat to public safety, in which case DJJ is required to provide treatment for human trafficking (although the legislation does not specify how the agency should determine the youth poses a risk to public safety, or what kind of treatment the agency is supposed to provide).

As AOC and DJJ have just begun to implement their screening processes, no one knows at this point is how many juvenile justice-involved youth will be identified as trafficking victims. Given that CDWs process nearly 40,000 referrals each year, and thousands of those youth end up in DJJ custody, it is possible that many more trafficking victims will be identified in the next year.

Treatment and Placement Options for Youth who are Commercially Sexually Exploited

As I have been researching the challenges that states have encountered in implementing CSEC legislation, I have identified one key area of focus: the lack of resources to invest in treatment and placement options for the CSEC population. Part of this challenge stems from the fact that there is a limited evidence-base for programs specifically designed for the CSEC population. While research has clearly shown that mental health treatment, specifically trauma-informed care, is a crucial component of child trafficking victim treatment programs, there is much less research on what type of placement or environment this care should be provided in.

Like many states, for many years Kentucky has been dependent primarily on out of home placement options for children in child welfare or juvenile justice custody. Few community-based service providers exist in many parts of the state, particularly those that can provide tailored treatment to child trafficking victims. However, the landscape of behavioral health services in Kentucky is changing. Through numerous policy changes, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services has expanded access to community-based services throughout the state, and created new incentives for providers to provide quality, evidence-based treatment for adolescents. Though this work is not specifically related to child trafficking issues, the hope is that this service expansion will create more treatment options for the CSEC population.

In Kentucky, service providers that work with trafficking victims have identified the need for a continuum of services and placement options for CSEC victims. These options range from trafficking victim-specific shelters that could provide emergency shelter, to long-term supportive independent living for CSEC victims who may be aging out of foster care. These programs have not been extensively researched, but examining which ones may be most appropriate for the Kentucky's CSEC population will be the primary focus of my work for the remainder of this summer project.

Photos!

Even though many of my posts will focus on research findings, I will try to disperse nice photos of Kentucky throughout the blog! Here are some of downtown Louisville - the town of bourbon, horses, and sunshine!

Research on Child Welfare and CSEC Involvement

Before I start posting highlights from my own research, I wanted to provide some background from other studies that are relevant to this work. Across the country, states have enacted laws related to the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) with the intent of stopping child trafficking victims from being criminalized for their behavior in the juvenile or criminal justice system. Recognizing that many youth victims of trafficking may not have stable housing or family support, child welfare agencies have been an obvious alternative choice to take responsibility for the CSEC population. However, there are numerous studies showing that a large proportion of CSEC youth have had prior involvement with the child welfare system, or are currently in foster care when they are trafficked. In 2014, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimated that of all CSEC victims who ran away from home, 68% were under supervision of social services or in foster care when they ran away. Studies from New York and Los Angeles have shown the majority of youth involved in the CSEC population were either previously or currently in foster care placement.

Youth in the child welfare system may be at risk of CSEC involvement, but what are the policy implications of this? Does this mean that youth who are identified trafficking victims should be placed in child welfare custody, or should we explore alternative custody options for youth who would be more at risk of CSEC involvement if they were in child welfare custody? This will be one of primary research questions this summer as I begin my research.