A high number of victims that encounter law enforcement agencies are from devious backgrounds. Law Enforcement most understand and have very clear that dealing with a kid in any situation is a risk factor when it comes to human trafficking, this also goes to female adults already trapped in commercial sex, voluntarily or not. Much attention should be given to those females that are reported missing as discovered in a Central Florida County Sherriff’s Office recently. A female juvenile that constantly runs away from home along with those involved in criminal gangs and with a lack of family support are flags that law enforcement should be paying extreme attention to avoid missing a potential victim of human trafficking. …show more content…
This task is as impossible to accomplish. To assist law enforcement in this task, practitioners had divided traffickers in three areas: street hustler/ thug, charming, and family-type authority figure (S. B., Keith, P., & Brown, E. 2012). “Street hustler/thug” is the trafficker that commonly has a violent criminal history and propensity. “Charming” traffickers are those that look to be polite and caring also known as, “Romeo pimps.” “Familiar/Family Pimps” are those holding a family relation to the victim, and in some cases, these traffickers could be the parents.
Florida Human Trafficking Laws Overview
Florida Statute 787.06 defines human trafficking as "transporting, soliciting, recruiting, harboring, providing, enticing, maintaining, or obtaining another person for the purpose of exploitation of that person." This abuse or exploitation of a human being could include solely or combined labor--farm work, sweatshop work, cleaning services, or restaurant work--or sex (Nova 2013.) Attached to this definition Florida Statute added three key elements when dealing with adult victims 1- force, 2- fraud, or 3- coercion.
The original statutes provided to combat human trafficking were enacted in 2004. The statutes created at the time were Florida Statutes 787, 796, and 895. Florida legislation provided the law enforcement community with great tools to combat this type of crime; however, these …show more content…
Victim Centered Investigations
Once the identification is made, the most important part is to make sure these victims are treated in accordance with their victims’ rights as stablished by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA).
The second step if to make either a NGO or a government victim advocate available to the victim to make sure all their immediate needs are met before any additional police intervention is attempted. These process will set the stage for investigators in getting an initial successful interview that address the identification of criminal violations and potential suspects of the identified crime.
Like in any other criminal investigation the collection of verbal or physical corroborating the statements provided by the victim is paramount. This segment of the investigation is where most investigators are free to use all their experience in different specialties to be able to develop provable cause based on the collected evidence and be able to present the case to prosecutors who will accommodate and disseminate all the collected evidence to be used in court during