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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Investigating The Relationship Between Foster Care And Sex Trafficking: What Factors Are Maintaining The Cycle Of Abuse, Shannon M. Budgell Dec 2023

Investigating The Relationship Between Foster Care And Sex Trafficking: What Factors Are Maintaining The Cycle Of Abuse, Shannon M. Budgell

Student Theses

Sex trafficking is a global crime and human rights issue that benefits abusers at the detriment of vulnerable groups, including children involved in the United States welfare system. This meta-synthesis explored the risk factors present within the United States foster care system that expose children to potential victimization. Using qualitative research, the purpose of this study was to review sex trafficking exploitation and analyze the current policies creating this vulnerability in the nation’s child welfare services. Upon completing a systematic literature search, nine studies were included by meeting the following criteria: qualitative or quantitative research studies published in English any …


The Criminalized Victim: Can Knowledge Of Trauma And Coercion Influence Free Will Doubt And Perception Of Culpability For Sex Trafficked Individuals?, Megan Korovich Jun 2020

The Criminalized Victim: Can Knowledge Of Trauma And Coercion Influence Free Will Doubt And Perception Of Culpability For Sex Trafficked Individuals?, Megan Korovich

Student Theses

Individuals who have been sex trafficked are continuously being targeted for prostitution and other related offenses instead of being recognized for their victimization. This may occur due to a fundamental lack of understanding of the sex-trafficked experience, allowing for misperceptions to form unhindered. Individuals with these misperceptions then go on to form laws and services intended to aid victims, but instead leave them vulnerable and criminalized. This study assessed whether an educational intervention on the experience of a sex-trafficked individual could influence public perceptions of free will doubt and criminal culpability. This study used a nonequivalent groups posttest-only design to …


Coercive Control In Long Term Sex Trafficking Relationships: Using Exhaustion To Control Victims, Nicole C. Bassil Jun 2019

Coercive Control In Long Term Sex Trafficking Relationships: Using Exhaustion To Control Victims, Nicole C. Bassil

Student Theses

The importance of coercive control tactics in maintaining women in commercial sex has been well-documented. Less known is how these tactics manifest in long-term relationships and how victims cope or react to establish patterns of control. The current study measured the temporal patterning of coercive control in long term sex trafficking relationships via wiretapped phone conversations between pimps and sex trafficked workers. In addition, victim responses of compliance versus resistance to coercive control tactics were measured. 68 phone calls over four months were transcribed and coded between two pimps and four women working in commercial sex. The findings indicate that …


Isolation And Support Dynamics Among Concurrent Victims Of Sex Trafficking, Leslie Unger, Chitra Raghavan May 2019

Isolation And Support Dynamics Among Concurrent Victims Of Sex Trafficking, Leslie Unger, Chitra Raghavan

Student Theses

The present study analyzed wiretap data to determine the characteristics of social support among concurrent victims of sex trafficking. Using a grounded theory approach to determine prevalent elements and themes that characterize interactions, conversations between women and conversations between pimps and women that involve concurrent victims as a topic of conversation were examined. A coding scheme was created based on the derived elements, and network patterns were analyzed. Finally, temporal patterns of conflict were examined to determine whether periods of heightened threat were used to punctuate periods of seeming calm, similar to that seen in research on coercive control and …


Elaboration Within Compliance:
Linguistic Patterns Within Coercive Control In Sex Trafficking, Jessica Pomerantz Aug 2018

Elaboration Within Compliance:
Linguistic Patterns Within Coercive Control In Sex Trafficking, Jessica Pomerantz

Student Theses

This study examines how the use of elaboration as a means of compliance, used by victims of sex trafficking in long-term relationships with their exploiters, supports the presence of chronic coercive control. A discourse analytical framework is used to capture the non-explicit coercive dynamics in conversations between sex workers and their exploiters. This study also employs the theoretical framework of coercive control to examine how victims use elaboration as a means of compliance to navigate the implicit and ongoing threats incorporated in an environment of coercive control. Linguistic analyses of the language that victims use with their traffickers compared to …


Functional Isolation: Understanding Isolation In Trafficking Survivors, Liz Mahan Dec 2017

Functional Isolation: Understanding Isolation In Trafficking Survivors, Liz Mahan

Student Theses

This study examined how traffickers used different elements of isolation and how such tactics may have contributed to the traffickers’ success in maintaining control over the victim. I examined in-depth narratives from 14 women between the ages of 20-53, primarily immigrants, who were recruited from an agency serving victims of sex trafficking in a large metropolitan city. The tactics used by traffickers varied and included not only the commonly defined structural isolation in which victims are restricted physically and socially, but also included a shrinking of safe social space and an elimination of privacy and social support. The latter is …