Supplemental Technical Assistance for State and Local Data Collection on Human Trafficking

Under this award, the Institute on Race and Justice at Northeastern University (NU) and the Justice Policy Center at The Urban Institute (UI) will supplement the activities of the Human Trafficking Data Collection and Reporting System (HTRS) project currently supported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).

Starting in September 2007, NU and UI designed, piloted and implemented HTRS, a web-based data collection and reporting system initially targeted for federally funded human trafficking task forces to report individual level data on human trafficking investigations as well as suspects and victims identified and investigated by members of their task force. Gathering standardized, reliable and routinely collected data measuring the number, characteristics and change in human trafficking incidents, investigations, arrests and prosecutions was necessary to meet legislative reporting requirements and assess the success of human trafficking prevention and intervention strategies. Additionally, the data collected through the HTRS can be used to more fully understand the phenomenon of human trafficking in local communities which leads to improved identification and prosecution of offenders and victims.

Under this award, Northeastern University will continue and improve data collection and reporting into the HTRS, and provide technical assistance to federally funded human trafficking task forces to ensure compliance and quality reporting into the HTRS and improve task force performance.
The project will also deliver quarterly data quality and substantive reports as well as annual data extractions to BJS to help the U.S. Department of Justice meet its biennial reporting requirement under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005.

Activities to be conducted include: 1) enhance the HTRS as necessary to meet the data collection requirements for BJS, improve its usefulness to individual human trafficking taskforces, and meet the reporting requirements of the Bureau of Justice Assistance; 2) oversee and ensure accurate and timely data collection from federally funded human trafficking task forces through the HTRS; 3) provide technical assistance to human trafficking task forces to continually improve data quality and timely reporting and enhance task force performance; 4) carry out data extraction, cleaning, and preparation for reporting; and 5) regularly report information to BJS describing both data quality issues and summarizing the characteristics of human trafficking investigations, arrests, prosecutions, and incarcerations identified by those agencies contributing to the reporting system; and 6) plan and expand HTRS to non-task forces involved law enforcement agencies.

nca/ncf

Under this award, the Institute on Race and Justice at Northeastern University (NU) and the Justice Policy Center at The Urban Institute (UI) will supplement the activities of the Human Trafficking Data Collection and Reporting System (HTRS) project currently supported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Starting in September 2007, NU and UI designed, piloted and implemented HTRS, a web-based data collection and reporting system initially targeted for federally funded human trafficking task forces to report individual level data on human trafficking investigations as well as suspects and victims identified and investigated by members of their task force. Gathering standardized, reliable and routinely collected data measuring the number, characteristics and change in human trafficking incidents, investigations, arrests and prosecutions was necessary to meet legislative reporting requirements and assess the success of human trafficking prevention and intervention strategies. Additionally, the data collected through the HTRS can be used to more fully understand the phenomenon of human trafficking in local communities which leads to improved identification and prosecution of offenders and victims.

Under this award, Northeastern University will continue and improve data collection and reporting into the HTRS, and provide technical assistance to federally funded human trafficking task forces to ensure compliance and quality reporting into the HTRS and improve task force performance. The project will also deliver quarterly data quality and substantive reports as well as annual data extractions to BJS to help the U.S. Department of Justice meet its biennial reporting requirement under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005.

Activities to be conducted include: 1) enhance the HTRS as necessary to meet the data collection requirements for BJS, improve its usefulness to individual human trafficking taskforces, and meet the reporting requirements of the Bureau of Justice Assistance; 2) oversee and ensure accurate and timely data collection from federally funded human trafficking task forces through the HTRS; 3) provide technical assistance to human trafficking task forces to continually improve data quality and timely reporting and enhance task force performance; 4) carry out data extraction, cleaning, and preparation for reporting; and 5) regularly report information to BJS describing both data quality issues and summarizing the characteristics of human trafficking investigations, arrests, prosecutions, and incarcerations identified by those agencies contributing to the reporting system; 6) plan and expand HTRS to non-task forces involved law enforcement agencies; 7) coordinate with state and federal agencies that have human trafficking data collection mandates.

ca/ncf

The 2007 Technical Assistance for State and Local Data Collection on Human Trafficking Statistics (DCHTS) will provide technical assistance to Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) funded human trafficking task forces to collect state and local data on human trafficking offenders. Data elements in this data collection include the number of investigations, arrests, and convictions for human trafficking offenses as well as the demographic characteristics of offenders. This technical assistance project and follow-on data collection will be the first to specifically target state and local human trafficking offenders. Information generated from this project may assist the Department of Justice's response to a Congressional requirement to gather data on human trafficking offenders.

Under this award, the Institute on Race and Justice at Northeastern University (NEU) and the Justice Policy Center at The Urban Institute (UI) will supplement the activities of the Human Trafficking Data Collection and Reporting System (HTRS) currently supported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Starting in September 2007 NEU and UI designed, piloted and implemented HTRS, a web-based data collection and reporting system initially targeted for federally funded human trafficking task forces to report individual level data on human trafficking investigations as well as suspects and victims identified and investigated by members of the task force. Gathering standardized, reliable and routinely collected data measuring the number, characteristics and change in human trafficking incidents, investigations, arrests and prosecutions was necessary to meet legislative reporting requirements and assess the success of human trafficking prevention and intervention strategies. Additionally, the data collected through the HTRS can be used to more fully understand the phenomenon of human trafficking in local communities which leads to improved identification and prosecution of offenders and victims.

This supplemental award will be used to collect and extract additional data, make improvements to the HTRS, provide technical assistance to federally funded human trafficking task forces, and ensure task force compliance and quality reporting of trafficking incidents into HTRS.

Additional activities include developing cases studies of existing task forces to identify best practices and preparing a final report of Lessons Learned to be distributed to task forces.

CA/NCF