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.
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.
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