Unified Database

Project Goals

The USF Human Trafficking Data Project will provide Florida with a comprehensive and accurate assessment of human trafficking incidents, hotspots, and trends. Transforming data into knowledge brings value to the State鈥檚 anti-human trafficking efforts including the development of a cohesive, concerted, and data-driven strategic anti-human trafficking plan. Human trafficking data sources include human trafficking screenings, human trafficking survivor surveys, crime incidents, arrest and court data, local demand indicators, regional risk indicators, and service providers/provision.

Human trafficking is profit-driven exploitation of men, women, or children facilitated by force, fraud, or coercion. Human trafficking exists in nearly every job setting or industry from agriculture to manufacturing. Human traffickers prey on persons made susceptible to exploitation by poverty, economic upheaval, family dysfunction, disability, and adverse life circumstances. Carving a wide path of destruction, human trafficking has severe impacts not only on exploited individuals but also on local communities by increasing poverty and hindering economic and social development. As a human rights violation and impediment to the development of sustainable communities, eliminating human trafficking is a top concern for taxpayers. Moreover, the project will:

  1. The project will aggregate and analyze human trafficking data currently being collected by various sectors and agencies related to sex and labor trafficking of children and adults. Agencies with human trafficking data would not be required to reenter data.  USF researchers and data analysts will provide the required manpower and resources.
  2. The project will inform anti-human trafficking stakeholders throughout Florida of regional risks and resiliency to human trafficking. We will finally be able to answer: 鈥淚s human trafficking occurring here 鈥榠n my backyard鈥�?鈥� If an area is resilient to human trafficking, we can inform other regions of the promising practices that increase resiliency to human trafficking. 
  3. The project will provide needed information to law enforcement agencies regarding hot spots of human trafficking in their jurisdictions to facilitate data-driven and targeted policing interventions resulting in crime reduction and better use of limited resources.
  4. The project will identify vulnerable populations and regions experiencing high levels of demand for human trafficking, thereby facilitating targeted demand reduction efforts with specific programming and messaging for specific populations who are consumers of human trafficking. 
  5. The project will provide urgently needed information for better care coordination for human trafficking survivors by informing social service providers throughout the state on service gaps and redundancies. 
  6. The project will provide data on human trafficking trends to evaluate the effectiveness of human trafficking prevention efforts throughout the state.
  7. With information on human trafficking trends and hotspots, we will be able to predict where more resources will be needed to proactively address human trafficking.