From villain to victim

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12497
• Date: 01 May 2020
• Author: Eoin Healy,Amanda Bobnis,Brandn Green,Stephen V. Gies
• Published date: 01 May 2020

DOI: 10.1111/1745-9133.12497

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

LAW AND THE COURTS

From villain to victim

The impact of safe harbor laws on minors involved in commercial

sexual exploitation

Stephen V. Gies PhD Eoin Healy PhD Brandn Green PhD

Amanda Bobnis MS

Development Services Group Inc., Bethesda, MD

Correspondence

StephenV. Gies, Research and Evaluation,

DevelopmentServices Group Inc., 7315 Wis-

consinAve 800 East, Bethesda, MD 20814-

3202.

Email:sgies@dsgonline.com

Fundinginformation

Officeof Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Prevention,Grant/Award Number:Grant No.

2014–JF–FX–0002

Thisproject was supported by Grant No. 2014–

JF–FX–0002,awarded by the Office of Juvenile

Justiceand Delinquency Prevention, Office of

JusticePrograms, U.S. Department of Justice,

with StephenV. Gies as the principal investiga-

torand all aut hor authors as co-investigators.

Thepoints of view in this document are those

oft he authors and do not necessarilyrepre-

sentt he official position or policies of the U.S.

Department of Justice.

Research Summary: Safe harbor laws are designed to

redirect young victims of commercial sexual exploitation

away from justice system involvement by prohibiting their

arrest and prosecution as criminals. A quasi-experimental

design was used to compare prostitution-related crime and

sex abuse maltreatment trends at the county level in states

that have implemented safe harbor laws with a comparison

group of counties in states that have not implemented safe

harbor laws. Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) were used to

measure prostitution-related crime trends, while National

Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) data

were used to measure sex abuse maltreatment trends. We

used a multilevel Poisson regression model to analyze the

change in prostitution-related crime and sex abuse maltreat-

ment trends in treatment and comparison counties over an

11-year observation period (2005–15).

Policy Implications: Overall, the findings provide a strik-

ing perspective into the current U.S. landscape of dealing

with the commercial sexual exploitation of juveniles. To

that end, the decline in the number of overall and juvenile

arrests across all prostitution-related offenses suggests that

safe harbor lawswere effective in redirecting young victims

away from system involvement. But the systematic provi-

sion of treatment services envisioned to go to these young

victims has, to date, not become a reality. Nevertheless,

Criminology & Public Policy. 2020;19:389–408. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/capp © 2020 American Society of Criminology 389

390 GIES ET AL.

these findings offer policymakers a foundation of evidence

that can be used to engage intelligently and knowledgeably

with regard to the current state of U.S. policy.

The sexual abuse of children and adolescents for economic gain, more commonly knownas the “com-

mercial sexual exploitation of children”(CSEC) is an atrocious cr ime (Albanese, 2007; Barnitz, 2001),

yet little is known about it. For example, no one knows for certain the extent to which CSEC occurs,

who are the perpetrators involved, and how manychildren are victims (Bar nert et al., 2017; Moynihan

et al., 2018). No one knows whether programs to address the needs of child victims of commercial

sexual exploitation benefit or harm them (Dell et al., 2017; Gerassi, 2017; Goldberg & Moore, 2018).

And there is scant evidence on whether established interventions to prevent and combat CSEC work to

reduce victimization (Barnert et al., 2017; Coleman, 2016; Davy, 2016; Felner & DuBois, 2017; van

der Laan, Smit, Busschers, Aarten, & van der Laan, 2011).

This lack of knowledge presents several challenges to policy makers for both understanding the

issue and consequently designing sound and responsible public policy to address the issue. In fact, the

first challenge to understanding CSEC is clearly defining it—for there is considerable confusion over

the distinction between CSEC and the sex trafficking of minors. Consider, for example, the Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) definition of CSEC:

A range of crimes and activities involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of a child

for the financial benefit of any person or in exchange for anything of value (including

monetary and nonmonetary benefits) given or received by any person. Examples of crimes

and acts that constitute CSEC include child sex trafficking/the prostitution of children.

(OJJDP, n.d.)

Note that the OJJDP definition lists sex trafficking as a form of CSEC. Others consider CSEC a form

of sex trafficking (Hampton & Lieggi, 2017). The two terms, in fact, are often used interchangeably

in the scientific literature (Gozdziak & Collett, 2005). Although these definitional issues should not

detract from the broader point that the commercial sexual abuse of children is a crime, they can be

problematic for measuring crime, prosecuting perpetrators, ensuring victims’ access to services, and

other reasons (Clayton, Krugman, & Simon, 2013).

Researchers have also noted that the choice of terminology can make a significant impact on the

criminal liability of child victims of commercial sexual exploitation (Mitchell, Finkelhor, & Wolak,

2010; Mitchell, Jones, Finkelhor, & Wolak, 2011). For example, “U.S. child victims may be referred

to as ‘prostitutes’ and foreign national child victims may be referred to as ‘sex trafficking victims’”

(Adams, Owens, & Small, 2010, p. 4). Although the difference in these characterizations may seem

inconsequential at a superficial level, the ramifications of such labels pose an egregious paradox. The

latter characterization (sex trafficking victims) views the youths involved as virtuous victims entitled

to support, compassion, and compensation, whereas the former (prostitutes) depicts the same youths

as prurient criminals who merit only the sanctions offered by the criminal justice system.

Furthermore, research demonstrates that characterizing these youths as criminals affects how they

are treated by law enforcement (Adams et al., 2010; Adelson, 2008), leading to a host of negative

outcomes including retraumatization through arrest, prosecution, and detention (Geist, 2012; Smith,

Vardaman, & Snow, 2009), and social hardships such as homelessness and social isolation (Clayton

et al., 2013). Finally,as Bounds, Julion, and Delaney (2015), p. 21) observed, such mischaracterizations