St. Pete Catalyst; Published By Mark Parker
Florida lawmakers have tasked researchers at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg with collecting and disseminating mountains of human trafficking data to better understand and mitigate the crime.
Recently signed legislation made the USF Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Risk to Resilience Research Lab the statewide repository for information collected by myriad statewide sources. Facility officials will now oversee a unified database that they believe will transform how law enforcement and various stakeholders look at human trafficking.
Senate Bill 7064 also increases victim support and strengthens penalties for convicted traffickers, and the lab’s leadership will now evaluate the effectiveness of state-funded initiatives. Florida currently ranks third nationally for hotline reports.
However, Shelly Wagers, professor of criminology and TIP Lab researcher, explained that siloed data makes human trafficking rates unclear. That impedes efforts to implement meaningful policies, resources and prevention programming.
“We have some idea of data, but it’s kind of flawed and only one piece,” Wagers said. “All crime has a time and place; it has a pattern. So, if you start to get all those pieces of the puzzle … into one place that’s unified, and you can pull it together, now you can see those patterns.” Read more
