Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the United States, 1997-2000

This project undertook the systematic collection of first-generation data concerning the nature, extent, and seriousness of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in the United States. The project was organized around the following research objectives: (1) identification of the nature, extent, and underlying causes of CSE and the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) occurring in the United States, (2) identification of those subgroups of children that were at the greatest risk of being sexually exploited, (3) identification of subgroups of adult perpetrators of sex crimes against children, and (4) identification of the modes of operation and other methods used by organized criminal units to recruit children into sexually exploitative activities. The study involved surveying senior staff members of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and government organizations (GOs) in the United States known to be dealing with persons involved in the transnational trafficking of children for sexual purposes. Part 1 consists of survey data from nongovernment organizations. These were local child and family agencies serving runaway and homeless youth. Part 2 consists of survey data from government organizations. These organizations were divided into local, state, and federal agencies. Local organizations included municipal law enforcement, county law enforcement, prosecutors, public defenders, and corrections. State organizations included state child welfare directors, prosecutors, and public defenders. Federal organizations included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Public Defenders, Immigration and Naturalization Service, United States Attorneys, United States Customs, and the United States Postal Service. Variables in Parts 1 and 2 include the organization's city, state, and ZIP code, the type of services provided or type of law enforcement agency, how the agency was funded, the scope of the agency's service area, how much emphasis was placed on CSEC as a policy issue or a service issue, conditions that might influence the number of CSEC cases, how staff were trained to deal with CSEC cases, how victims were identified, the number of children that experienced child abuse, sexual abuse, pornography, or other exploitation in 1999 and 2000 by age and gender, methods of recruitment, family history of victims, gang involvement, and substance abuse history of victims.

The benefits of economic globalization, internationalization, and free trade have brought with them an unanticipated set of social problems. Among them is what appears to be a dramatic rise worldwide in the incidence of child exploitation. Among the most virulent forms of this exploitation is child sexual exploitation (CSE), including the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC). The extent of these problems in the United States has been unknown, although most experts dealing with CSEC regard it to be a serious problem in North America. This project undertook the systematic collection of first-generation data concerning the nature, extent, and seriousness of child sexual exploitation in the United States. The project was organized around the following research objectives: (1) identification of the nature, extent, and underlying causes of CSE and CSEC occurring in the United States, (2) identification of those subgroups of children that were at the greatest risk of being sexually exploited, (3) identification of subgroups of adult perpetrators of sex crimes against children, and (4) identification of the modes of operation and other methods used by organized criminal units to recruit children into sexually exploitative activities.

This study involved surveying senior staff members of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and government organizations (GOs) in the United States known to be dealing with persons involved in the transnational trafficking of children for sexual purposes. Part 1 consists of survey data from nongovernment organizations. These were local child and family agencies serving runaway and homeless youth. Part 2 consists of survey data from government organizations. These organizations were divided into local, state, and federal agencies. Local organizations included municipal law enforcement, county law enforcement, prosecutors, public defenders, and corrections. State organizations included state child welfare directors, prosecutors, and public defenders. Federal organizations included the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Public Defenders, Immigration and Naturalization Service, United States Attorneys, United States Customs, and the United States Postal Service. Surveys were originally mailed to the organizations. Researchers used additional mailings, telephone calls, and faxes to encourage responsiveness.

Variables in Parts 1 and 2 include the organization's city, state, and ZIP code, the type of services provided or type of law enforcement agency, how the agency was funded, the scope of the agency's service area, how much emphasis was placed on CSEC as a policy issue or a service issue, conditions that might influence the number of CSEC cases, how staff were trained to deal with CSEC cases, how victims were identified, the number of children that experienced child abuse, sexual abuse, pornography, or other exploitation in 1999 and 2000 by age and gender, methods of recruitment, family history of victims, gang involvement, and substance abuse history of victims.

ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Standardized missing values.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..

Presence of Common Scales: Several Likert-type scales were used.

Response Rates: The response rate for Part 1 (nongovernmental organizations) was 22 percent. The response rate for Part 2 (governmental organizations) was 24 percent.

Datasets:

• DS0: Study-Level Files
• DS1: Nongovernment Organization Survey Data
• DS2: Government Organization Survey Data