The global modern slavery issue
The global modern slavery issue has attracted substantive social and political attention (Patterson & Zhuo, 2018). Studies on the modern slavery issue include attention on the historical representation of slavery and ways this representation may be used to inform modern responses to the issue and the individual, systematic, and related social aspects, which may create susceptibility to slavery (Davidson, 2017). Regardless of the increasing cognizance of the concern and influx of resources from bodies such as the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, foundations, and the United States government, the area is still limited by its incapacity to measure the scope and size of modern slavery.
Studies have been thought to have an important role in understanding the criminal justice system’s approach of responding to human trafficking and determining limitations that hinders the present-day exertions from addressing the issue (Farrell & Reichert, 2017). The necessity for studies is more pressing, provided the declining resources and restricted budgets. In times when the states search and use evidence-based practices, practitioners and policymakers are searching for information from communities to obtain data that is required in analyzing the impacts of anti-trafficking.
The information that is used in approximating human trafficking prevalence in America lacks in quality and scope in the state, federal, and local levels (Farrell & Reichert, 2017). The lack of reliable information and reliance on inadequate proof has stirred conflicts amongst anti-trafficking movements in the state, and some researchers have criticized the problem as unsubstantiated and approximate that the problem is dubious. The latest estimates of persons trafficked in the United States annually have differed broadly from about 14,500 to 17,500 persons (Meyer, 2017).
The modern slavery issue may be cyclical, meaning it is without precise estimates of the prevalence of human trafficking (Donnelly et al., 2019). This makes it hard to know ways of allocating resources to study the problem. American agencies in the anti-trafficking exertions recognize this information deficiency and recommend that America should improve the data and issue analysis of people trafficking at the local and state levels. Some organizations funded several schemes to facilitate data collection and the analysis of the collected data on people trafficking.
After passing of the Trafficking Victims Act in 2000, states have also passed a law that outlaws human trafficking and sanctions local and state enforcement (Judge & Boursaw, 2018). The local and states enforcement can now investigate trafficking issues without relying on federal agencies to prosecute human trafficking cases in the state courts. The rising participation of local and state enforcement is important as they assist in handling several trafficking issues in the United States. Before passing the state anti-trafficking laws, the federal law enforcement requested that the local and state officers to be the whistleblowers of the state law enforcement in the recognition, uncovering and responding to situations that may turn out to be cases of human trafficking (Lobasz, 2019). According to Ferguson (2019), the enactment and full involvement of law enforcement will help to identify, understand, and combat this type of modern-day slavery.
In conclusion, the provision of essential resources to allow the law enforcement in partnership with other agencies will better prevent and intervene in human trafficking scenarios in efforts of deterring human traffickers, minimize the number of victims and also restore the lives of people exploited in the process (McKenzie, Phillips & Lohman, 2020). Some of the resources include strict penalties for criminal conduct indicative of trafficking behavior, creating awareness to unveil the actuality of people trafficking in diverse communities throughout the United States where human traffickers prey the vulnerable persons despite their background.