Higher Education and Human Trafficking

A Capstone Presented to the Faculty of the School of Education at Governors State University

By Dr. David Deeds

March 2022

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education

Dedication

This capstone is dedicated to my wife and children who inspired me every day to dream and achieve.

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge that the journey of completing a doctorate is comparable to climbing a mountain and many footholds along the way make the entire journey possible. Those who have helped me on my journey include my parents Richard and Nola, who instilled confidence in me to address a topic as heavy and serious as human trafficking. My Dad helped me to have the courage and will power to push through the capstone process. My Mom offered nonstop words of support before and during this journey. Beyond my parents I found my wife and children to be important sources of help and motivation throughout this journey. My wife Millie believed in me and encouraged me to put in the hours necessary to complete this paper and supported me as I encountered numerous setbacks. To say she was my most important and constant source of support would be a tremendous understatement. My children Naomi, Owen, Eli, and Noah; I want you to see firsthand that dreams can be reality if you have patience and persistence. My wife and children were a well of motivation that I continuously went to as I faced setbacks and challenges throughout this process. 

Within academia, I found some of my biggest supporters in amazing faculty members who took time to help me think critically and offer encouragement to further progress through academia and life. Dr. Larry Levinson showed me how great patience can be an asset when attempting to learn a new concept or way of thinking. This has been useful in and out of the classroom. Dr. Chip Coldren took time to offer insight into navigating the multiple courses I took with him as well as life while being a student. Dr. Eric Thompson has been instrumental in helping me make critical choices leading up to and through my doctoral process. The guidance and willingness to care that I received from these and other faculty members is what made this journey possible. I acknowledge that without them, this paper would not exist.

In closing out my acknowledgements, I would like to single out an individual who has been championing for my cause for years and has been a steadfast influence in various roles that have helped me time and time again. Dr. Matthew Cooney has graciously gone above and beyond the work of a capstone committee chair and has, at times, been a counselor, proofreader, fact checker, sounding board, guide, and so much more. I have turned to him hundreds of times in the classroom and as I prepared for my capstone, and as I went through the process to complete it. His guidance and kindness were essential in completing this paper and I will be eternally grateful to him for helping me complete my journey.

Abstract

Criminal justice college students prepare to enter law enforcement at higher rates than any other discipline in higher education while being just as underinformed as other students about human trafficking. The main research into why this is happening has looked outside academia. Previous research has primarily relied on interviews with students and surveys. These have shown a range of possible reasons why criminal justice students are uninformed about human trafficking, but they all looked outside of academia. In this study criminal justice faculty were interviewed to determine how they present human trafficking in their classrooms and how they decide if human trafficking is relevant for their courses or not. Contrary to previous research, this study's findings suggest that the faculty members may be a main reason why students are under informed about human trafficking. The researcher's findings indicate that instructors could only partially define the crime of human trafficking, only discussed it in class on a limited basis, used textbooks and other materials that included a limited amount of content on human trafficking, and believed that the administration should be involved to help increase the amount of human trafficking content in criminal justice courses. 

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY

In this chapter, the researcher presents a background of human trafficking and the prevalence of the crime to police officers and criminal justice students' abilities to detect and understand human trafficking. Additionally, this chapter will address and explain the problem of educators not properly teaching criminal justice students to understand and identify human trafficking. The chapter closes by detailing the significance of the study, reviewing terms, and listing limitations.

Background

Human trafficking is a crime that ensnares 35 million individuals throughout the world (Bales, 2016), and is the second most profitable crime at 150 billion dollars annually (International Labor Organization, 2014). Ferrell et al. (2010) estimated there are as many as 60,000 human trafficking victims in the United States (U.S.) on any given day. Within the U.S., there are an estimated 17,500 individuals trafficked into the country every year (Department of Justice, 2016). To address this issue, law enforcement must be aware of who the victims are and what signs can identify victims. Menaker and Franklin (2013) found that as myths about human trafficking increase, the ability to identify victims decreases for criminal justice professionals. The Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2018 discovered that victims detected within their own national borders represent the largest group of detected victims in the world and should be addressed as a criminal justice priority in all nations. After reviewing policy objectives, Dandurand (2017) found that approaches to the prevention and control of human trafficking are not always clear, which results in law enforcement priorities that can fluctuate with various shifts in media attention, public expectation, and local or national political pressures. 

Criminal Justice and Human Trafficking

Unfortunately, in the U.S., multiple studies show that police officers across the country are not properly trained for how to detect human trafficking and are unaware of its prevalence (Farrell, et al., 2016). Lack of training and understanding has led local officers to overwhelmingly misinterpret who should be addressing human trafficking. Surveyed agencies from across the country show that 70% of local law enforcement believe these cases should be handled with federal laws rather than state laws (Finckenauer & Liu, 2006; Wilson et al., 2006). While local law enforcement personnel believe federal authorities should handle human trafficking cases, the federal government has devised an entire strategic plan as detailed in The President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons 2014 that depends on local law enforcement as key figures in the fight against human trafficking. Farrell and Pfeffer (2014) stated that when officers “do not understand what human trafficking is, they do not prioritize its identification” (p. 50). Police officers' misguided expectations and lack of training regarding human trafficking have led to situations where nongovernmental organizations may be identifying more victims of labor trafficking than law enforcement personnel (Frost, 2010).

Opportunities for officers to learn about human trafficking as professionals may be too limited to be effective. Mapp et al. (2016) found that only 17% of surveyed officers received training on human trafficking, and just under a third of those reported their training as being brief, sometimes as little as one hour long. In 2014, 32 states made human trafficking training mandatory for law enforcement, or encouraged officers to receive training (Polaris, 2015). While this is a positive step towards educating police officers, it is still insufficient. This creates a dangerous scenario where law enforcement personnel are not required to receive training and appear unmotivated to voluntarily seek out additional information about one of the most profitable and prevalent crimes in the world.

Measuring human trafficking within the U.S. is troublesome, as victims are part of a hidden population that is difficult to identify. However, the numbers that are available point to human trafficking being a significant issue that police officers should be prepared to identify and respond to accordingly. In 2019, the National Human Trafficking Hotline identified 19% more victims than in 2018 (Polaris, 2021). Ferrell et al. (2010) estimated there to be as many as 60,000 human trafficking victims in the U.S., including labor trafficking and sex trafficking victims. Sex trafficking victims can be forced to have sex with up to 20 men a day (Kara, 2008). That means there are possibly thousands of rapes taking place every day that are not known to the criminal justice system or to the rest of society. The incidences of rape may jump even higher based on Shared Hope International and the FBI's combined efforts to better understand human trafficking across 10 cities in the U.S. This study revealed that there may be anywhere from 100,000-200,000 victims of sex trafficking in the U.S. that are children (Smith et al., 2009). This would result in millions of rapes and various forms of assault and battery that are not being documented or made known to the criminal justice system. Within the U.S., the number of documented rapes from 2015-2019 never went higher than 735,000 incidences (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2020). In 2019, the FBI's Uniform Crime Report estimated that there were 16,425 people murdered in the U.S. and there were 267,988 robberies that took place as well. All totaled, the number of violent crimes documented by the FBI in 2019 equals 1,203,808 incidents across the country. That number is significantly less than the amount of child rapes that are estimated to take place across the country every year as a result of domestic minor child sex trafficking, according to the FBI's and Shared Hope International's study. 

Academia 

According to Hendrickson et al. (2013), colleges and universities have the potential to be the most influential institutions in the world. This ability to influence has increased, as these organizations have become more diverse and complex to serve a growing demand for higher education. The demographic makeup of colleges and universities has been changing for years, with male enrollment increasing by 17% while being outpaced by female enrollment increasing at 21%, and Hispanic, Asian, and Black rates increasing as well from 2007-2017 (U.S. Department of Education, 2019). While the potential for great influence may exist at universities and colleges around the U.S., some argue that higher education has become wasteful and inefficient and point to the professors as the main culprits (Bastedo et al., 2016). The higher education professor in the 21^st century is affected by a multitude of factors that diminish their effectiveness, including increasingly hiring part-time faculty, reduction of unions, job dissatisfaction, reduction in tenure, and more (Bastedo et al., 2016). 

Criminal Justice and Academia

A review of police officer involvement in higher education details that as far back as 1929, the International Association of Chiefs of Police noted the potential benefits of hiring officers with higher education experience (Rydberg & Terrill, 2010). By 1976, there were 1,070 institutions offering higher education programs directed at students interested in law enforcement, and most were at community colleges taught by police officers (Sherman, 1978). While police departments generally do not require a four-year degree, an increasing number of police officers do have them (Roberg & Bonn, 2004). In 1988, a national survey found 23% of the 250,000 officers had a four-year degree (Rydberg & Terrill, 2010). Reviewing requirement standards, Hickman and Reaves (2003a) found that from 1990 to 2000, the number of officers employed at a department with a degree requirement increased from 3% to 9%. Hickman and Reaves (2003b) found that 15% of departments had some type of college requirement, usually a two-year degree (8%). There has been a push to increase officers' exposure to higher education before they enter police work, and potential officers have responded by increasingly seeking out college and university degrees. 

It does not appear that criminal justice students, who may be prospective officers, are choosing to enter into criminal justice degree programs because of recommendations or department requirements. Only 1% of local police departments require a four-year degree (Hickman & Reaves, 2006). Krimmel and Tartaro (1999) reported that after surveying 400 criminal justice students from 12 four-year colleges, the overwhelmingly desired job was in law enforcement, with 45% of the sample selecting it as their desired job. Looking at life after graduation, Courtwright and Mackey (2004) found that criminal justice students' desirability to work in law enforcement was above that of students outside the criminal justice major, and law enforcement jobs were more desirable than any other job within criminal justice. Surveying criminal justice students from freshman through senior classes revealed that seniors were less likely to want a career in law enforcement compared to freshmen, but still preferred law enforcement above other career options (Walters & Kremser, 2016). Interestingly, the disparity in preference for a career in law enforcement from freshmen compared to seniors was likely attributed to misinformation and the sensationalizing of law enforcement in movies and television, and development through the program helped to better inform seniors about the realities of the job (Walters & Kremser, 2016).

Criminal Justice Students and Human Trafficking

Student perceptions and satisfaction with their criminal justice degree may be positive, but their understanding of human trafficking upon graduation does not appear to be significantly more than it was before earning their degrees. Haroldson (2014) conducted interviews with criminal justice majors and determined that student's perceptions of human trafficking fell into four categories — being synonymous with sex trafficking; only involving women and children; only involving certain racial groups; and victims played some role in their victimization. This is a highly distorted view of what human trafficking is. For example, The Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2018 stated that men and boys comprise 28% of identified victims. Student misunderstanding on this point was likely caused by the source of their information. The media played a significant role in shaping student's perceptions of human trafficking with nearly two-thirds listing the media as a source for human trafficking information (Haroldson, 2014). Criminal justice students' perceptions and beliefs about human trafficking led them to false conclusions about the scope of human trafficking and how best to respond to it. Leteroneau (2007) found that a majority of criminal justice students underestimated the amount of money that traffickers earned and over-estimated how many victims are trafficked into the U.S. annually. When asked if human trafficking was best handled by law enforcement, only 38% of criminal justice students agreed (Jones, 2012). There are many opinions on how to address human trafficking, and the Global Report on Human Trafficking 2018 stated that human trafficking should be a criminal justice priority. Additionally, Farrell and Reichert (2017) explained that since the passing of the William Wilberforce Act of 2008, there has been an increased call on all levels of the U.S. criminal justice system to respond. 

Perhaps the main reason criminal justice students misunderstand human trafficking is that they are not being educated well enough about it. Zhilina (2012) was unable to find any courses that were required or electives with a human trafficking subject title across 140 undergraduate and graduate criminology and criminal justice programs. After reading the course descriptions, there were eight courses from seven different programs that had potential to discuss human trafficking within the courses (Zhilina, 2012). Even in these instances, there is evidence that what could be taught about human trafficking may not be comprehensive, as these courses mentioned sex trafficking without a single mention of labor trafficking in the course descriptions (Zhilina, 2012). Further research on what is being taught in criminal justice higher education courses should be conducted to discover what other factors are responsible for insufficiently preparing future law enforcement officers regarding human trafficking. 

Problem Statement

Educators in colleges and universities may not be properly informing or preparing criminal justice students to understand what human trafficking is or how to identify potential victims. This lack of education about human trafficking may be allowing thousands of victims to suffer within the U.S., as police officers are unable to accurately identify human trafficking victims (Farrell et al., 2016; Farrell & Pfeffer, 2014; Frost, 2010). A majority of criminal justice students desire to work in law enforcement (Krimmel & Tartaro, 1999), and will exit higher education with an insufficient amount of information about human trafficking (Haroldson, 2014; Letourneau, 2007). This is out of touch with the global consensus that university curricula should offer relevant information for a variety of increasingly complex jobs (Altbach, 2016). Students are unlikely to receive sufficient training after being hired as police officers during the academy or throughout their career in law enforcement (Farrell, 2012), which makes it critical that they be educated on the topic while still in school. 

The specific problem is that it is not known why or how instructors in criminal justice higher education programs are failing to educate students enough to be able to understand and identify human trafficking (Haroldson, 2014; Jones, 2012; Leteroneau, 2007), so that they can properly identify victims when they become law enforcement officers. Reviewing the course content and teaching style of educators would address the gap in the literature and explain why criminal justice students are so undereducated on the topic of human trafficking, while spending four years pursuing a degree to better understand the criminal justice system. Current explanations for students' lack of understanding is attributed to variables outside of higher education, including media (Haroldson, 2014), lack of courses (Zhilina, 2012), racial differences (Jones, 2012), or no explanation at all (Leteroneau, 2007). 

Purpose of Study

This qualitative, exploratory study investigated the possible connection between how criminal justice faculty talk about human trafficking, how much they share their knowledge with students, how they share it, and students' understanding of the topic. The goal of this study was to investigate criminal justice instructors' knowledge and teaching style concerning human trafficking. By identifying how much this specific group of educators knows about human trafficking and how they share that information with students, the information gained from this study will hopefully give insight into criminal justice students not being properly educated before becoming law enforcement officers. This study exclusively looked into criminal justice instructors because they are educating individuals seeking careers in law enforcement.

Research Questions

The present study has two main research questions:

RQ1: How do criminal justice faculty present human trafficking in their classrooms?

RQ2: How do criminal justice faculty decide if human trafficking is relevant for their courses or not?

Significance of the Study 

The literature is filled with studies that have measured and analyzed college students' understanding of human trafficking and their inability to sufficiently understand the topic (Claggett, 2014; Overholt, 2013; Tumiel, 2014). Turning to criminal justice students specifically, the misinformed trend continues (Haroldson, 2014; Jones, 2012; Leteroneau, 2007). Almost all previous studies on students' perceptions and knowledge of human trafficking have looked outside academia to explain why they are undereducated about this topic. 

This study proposed that students' lack of understanding of human trafficking may have more to do with the content taught by criminal justice instructors than what is currently identified in the literature. By exploring the educational approach that instructors use to teach human trafficking, it may be possible to identify a tangible variable (instructor pedagogy) that can be adjusted to increase students' understanding.

Limitations

There are several limitations to this research. This exploratory case study measured information that was shared by a small group of educators from a single institution; this means the findings are not generalizable to a wider community (Yin, 2018). Additionally, this study was interested in whether faculty knowledge of human trafficking affects how students understand the topic, without evaluating the students' understanding. The study was conducted in this way, because the literature suggested that students' understanding was ubiquitously underwhelming in previous studies that focused on student comprehension. This study looked to explore how faculty knowledge and processes may affect students. 

The institution that was selected for this study was College of DuPage, which offers students a two-year degree. It is unclear whether there would have been any difference in selecting a four-year university as the study site. Additionally, the institution used in this study has a police academy located on the premises of the college campus. Again, it is not known whether this had any effect on the findings of the study.

During the data collection portion of the study, the researcher used a 10 question semi-structured interview protocol while using open coding to combine the responses into condensed categories. During this process, it is possible that bias can take place, as the researcher constructs the categories throughout the initial round of interviews (Johnson, 2019). The researcher approached this study with a constructivist point of view and has constructed their own perspectives on human trafficking. Being aware of potential bias can keep the researcher from pursuing or advocating the attainment of desired results (Yin, 2018). To combat researcher bias as much as possible, an experienced researcher was used as a member checker to verify categories and make recommendations when necessary.

CHAPTER II: INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, a review of the literature will be discussed. The criteria for inclusion will be detailed and major themes that were identified in the literature will be presented. The chapter will close with a short review and analysis of the findings from the literature review and identified gaps will be noted. 

Inclusion Criteria

Literature for review was included if the content came from scholarly articles; nonprofits that address human trafficking; books and/or reports covering human trafficking; criminal justice and human trafficking; law enforcement and human trafficking; college/university students across multiple disciplines and human trafficking; law enforcement and higher education; and society's awareness of human trafficking. The researcher actively attempted to provide the most updated and accurate literature published since 2009, with an additional focus on more recent literature from 2015-2019. In some instances, the most relevant available literature was published before 2000, but this was not common and does not affect the ability to accurately convey human trafficking within the current literature landscape.

Review of the Literature

Defining human trafficking within and across borders is a fundamental challenge (Pfeffer, 2018). Confusion insofar as defining human trafficking has led to human trafficking being confused with smuggling and prostitution (Jones, 2012). In November 2000, more than 100 countries agreed on an international definition of human trafficking in the United Nations' Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children agreement. The United Nations defined human trafficking as:

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

In the same year, the United Nations secured an international definition of human trafficking, and the U.S. created its own national definition through the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). Similar to the United Nations' definition of human trafficking, the TVPA placed emphasis on threat, force, and coercion as elements of trafficking. The TVPA defined human trafficking as: 

1) Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not yet attained 18 years of age; or

2) The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery (Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 2000).

Importantly, for human trafficking to be present, both definitions do not require that a victim be relocated or moved. Interestingly, in the U.S., the federal government's effort to combat human trafficking was intended to be supplemented by states creating their own laws and definitions. The first states to create state definitions of human trafficking were Texas and Washington in 2003, and it took until 2013 for the last state, South Dakota, to create their own definition of human trafficking (Polaris, 2019). As a result, there are dozens of definitions of human trafficking in the U.S. alone. Within the literature, the definition most referred to is the original one from TVPA. 

Scope of Human Trafficking

As of 2016, there were 35 million individuals suffering as human trafficking victims in the world (Bales, 2016). These individuals are forced to earn their traffickers a combined $150 billion annually, making human trafficking the second most profitable crime in the world (ILO, 2014). According to the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2018, this global phenomenon affects countries differently, with wealthier countries being more likely to be destinations for detected victims that are trafficked from distant origin countries. Reviewing United Nations data sets, Bales (2007) was able to find correlations with origin countries that have high government corruption, and destination countries that have significant populations of men over 60 years of age. Identifying potentially causative variables in international human trafficking is important, but more victims suffer in the country where they have citizenship than those being shipped to a distant land.

Human Trafficking in the U.S.

Farrell et al. (2010) estimated there to be 60,000 human trafficking victims in the U.S. on any given day. Montes (2007) stated that there may be as many as 24,000 women and girls prostituting in Chicago annually who are all at an increased risk of being trafficked. According to Kara (2017), the labor trafficking victims working in California valleys are some of the most accessible enslaved persons he has encountered in over a decade of investigating human trafficking around the world. Human trafficking in the U.S. is not only comprised of foreign nationals, as U.S. citizens are victims as well (Logan et al., 2009). “Recent research suggests that American youths are the most vulnerable to becoming victims of sex trafficking in this country” (Kotrla, 2010, p. 181), with as many as 100,000 U.S. children being victimized per year (Siskin & Wyler, 2012). While most victims are detected in the same country that they have citizenship, there have been victims detected in the U.S. representing 96 different citizenships (Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 2018). Where victims come from and their gender factor heavily into how they will be victimized. Almost 80% of identified sex trafficking victims in San Diego were born in the U.S. (Carpenter & Gates, 2016). Owens et al. (2014) discovered that 90% of detected victims working in agriculture were men, and 95% working in private residences as domestic victims were women. 

Shockingly, many labor trafficking victims in the U.S. are in the country legally under the visa program (Kara, 2017; Owens et al., 2014). Kara (2017) reported that after interviewing more than a thousand migrant workers in California's Central Valley, he found that 303 met the criteria to be labor trafficking victims and concluded that trafficking occurred with legal migrants as much as with those who were undocumented. Between January 1^st, 2015 – December 31, 2017, half of the victims of labor trafficking identified through the national human trafficking hotline were foreign nationals with visas (Human Trafficking on Temporary Work Visas a Data Analysis 2015-2017, 2018). 

To address the problem of human trafficking in the U.S., the federal government passed the TVPA in 2000 and criminalized all forms of labor and sex trafficking (Wooditch, 2011), and all of the states passed state level legislations by 2013 (Polaris Project, 2019). The prevalence and typology of human trafficking in each state widely varies. California has consistently been the number one state for the number of victims identified. A state identified victim count can be influenced by the level of response, investigation, and overall concern in addressing human trafficking. California has been at the forefront of developing legislation to address human trafficking. Despite California's effort, traffickers continue to victimize others in the name of profit. The illicit sex economy in San Diego during 2013 was at a remarkable $810 million (Carpenter & Gates, 2016). This amount is significant because Dank et al. (2014) studied eight U.S. cities and found a range in underground sex economies from $39 million – $290 million. As the marketplace for all forms of trafficking in the U.S. has grown, the federal government has continued to reauthorize the TVPA several times, using a law enforcement approach to stop human trafficking. 

There is substantial research that shows both sex and labor trafficking are taking place in the U.S. (Dank et al., 2015; Kara, 2012, 2017). According to Polaris' report The Typology of Human Trafficking, there are at least 25 different types of human trafficking taking place in the U.S. Trafficking takes place in recreational facilities; healthcare facilities; strip clubs; bars; carnivals; construction; landscaping; and more. 

Academia in the U.S.

Over the past 120 years, higher education has helped women and minorities access more education and earning potential (U.S. Department of Education, 1993). Extending opportunities to previously ostracized groups has caused institutions of higher education to become more common across the country. Where there were only 563 institutions of higher education in 1870, that number ballooned into 4,182 by the turn of the twenty-first century (Bastedo et al., 2016). Higher education has been a fundamental tool to help assert equality across multiple demographics, and it has helped society in a wide range of ways beyond earning potential (Hendrickson et al., 2013). 

It is undeniable that for years, research conducted at universities across the country has contributed to society (Bastedo et al., 2016). Research efforts that have seen private sector endeavors rely on the resources and knowledge of colleges and universities have helped produce products that improve life for everyone. Additionally, those attending higher education can access a host of benefits by virtue of their experience in higher education. According to Ma et al. (2016), those who have completed a 4-year bachelor's degree will be less likely to smoke; more likely to work out; more likely to have civic engagement; more likely to vote; have better health plans; engage in more educational activities with their kids; and be less likely to be obese than those who do not complete a 4-year degree.

The importance of higher education is not an opinion only held by those within the field. Hendrickson et al. (2013) stated that the nation's colleges and universities are held in high regard by the public at large. The support for higher education is so strong that it permeates partisan politics within the citizenry. While Republicans and Democrats in the legislature may hold differing opinions of these institutions, they would approve of increasing access to higher education without the burdens of cost, with 82% favoring increasing Pell grants and 57% in favor of eliminating tuition for students attending public schools (Lederman, 2019).

For hundreds of years, the nation has relied on higher education to close equality gaps and provide a path to upward social mobility for marginalized populations. In doing this, the country has seen those who have attended and completed higher education reap tremendous benefits. Today, the public continues to hold a favorable view of higher education and seems intent on doing what is necessary to ensure higher education remains an important institution for the years to come.

Law Enforcement

Almost two decades have passed since the federal government introduced the first legislation addressing human trafficking, and law enforcement officers are still having difficulty defining, identifying, and receiving proper training on human trafficking (Farrell et al., 2015; Grubb & Bennett, 2012; Mapp et al., 2016; Zubairie, 2016). When law enforcement agencies do prioritize human trafficking, they often focus on a very specific type of human trafficking, typically sex trafficking (Farrell & Pfeffer, 2014). By primarily aiming initiatives against human trafficking toward combating sex trafficking, law enforcement fails to consider the challenges posed by other forms of trafficking (Dandurand, 2017). According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics special report Federal Prosecution of Human-Trafficking Cases, 2015, “The number of suspects prosecuted for human trafficking increased from 729 in 2011 to 1,049 in 2015, a 44% increase” (p. 1). While the increase in prosecutions is encouraging, a closer examination reveals how federal operations focus on human trafficking. Of the 769 convictions for human trafficking in 2015, the top three offenses that traffickers were charged with were peonage, slavery, forced labor, or sex; production of child pornography; and transportation for illegal sex activity (Motivans & Snyder, 2018). This shows that a majority of prosecuted cases focus on some element of sex trafficking. In a study on law enforcement across 12 counties, Farrell et al. (2015) found that prostitution was overwhelmingly the most common existing crime schema that police used to understand human trafficking. The inability to separate sex trafficking from prostitution led officers to make remarks that “human trafficking is simply a form of prostitution,” while another officer believed that “it [human trafficking] is actually just prostitution” (p. 323). 

Not Identifying Enough Victims

Law enforcements' inability to identify victims can go beyond missing opportunities to save victims, by categorizing victims as offenders, blaming them for being undocumented, blaming them for involvement in prostitution, and possibly being complicit in their victimization (Farrell et al., 2014). Bales and Lize (2005) found that in half of the trafficking cases they examined, local law enforcement had contact with traffickers prior to the investigation of human trafficking. On several occasions, law enforcement did not properly identify victims because they did not detect the signs of trafficking. Law enforcement officers not identifying victims of human trafficking may be more of a departmental issue rather than the officer. Grubb & Bennett (2012) found that when inquiring about department documented human trafficking investigations over a four-year period, 87% indicated that their department had not investigated a human trafficking case, with only 7.1% answering yes to investigating a case. With departments choosing not to conduct human trafficking investigations specifically, it has become common for victims to be identified while officers are engaged in other related cases (Clawson et al., 2006). Police officers are identifying victims so often during related cases, that this form of identifying victims outpaces receiving tips from federal law enforcement or non-governmental organizations (Grubb & Bennett, 2012). 

Not Receiving Enough Training to Find Victims

Studies have shown that specialized training improves officer performance (Jacobi, 2018). The effects of training go beyond the individual officer, when comparing states that have trafficking legislation to those that do not. Wagner (2012) found a statistical difference in law enforcement's knowledge of human trafficking, identification of trafficking cases, and familiarity with the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Unfortunately, Grub and Bennet (2012) discovered that more than 75% of departments had received no training over the previous four years. Mapp et al. (2016) found that only 17% of surveyed officers received training on human trafficking, while just under a third reported their training as being brief, or in some cases, less than one hour. In 2014, only 32 states either mandated or encouraged law enforcement to receive human trafficking training (Polaris Project, 2015). The lack of enforced training on human trafficking likely contributed to Wagner's (2012) findings that more than a third of officers were unaware of whether their state had a human trafficking law. In Dallas, Texas, Zubairie (2016) found that surveyed officers ranked human trafficking as the second most important crime that needed to be addressed. He was also able to determine the amount of time officers had served, as this did not affect their ability to identify victims at a higher rate, as opposed to officers who had served for less time. Interestingly, Zubairie (2016) found that of the police officers who participated in the study, one third completed either an associate or bachelor's degree, and another 54% had some college experience. This means that a mere 15% had no exposure to higher education before becoming a police officer.

Police and Higher Education

The criminal justice system has been looking to higher education to better prepare police officers in some capacity since 1929, when the International Association of Chiefs of Police noted the potential benefits of hiring officers with higher education experience (Rydberg & Terrill, 2010). Chief August Volmer was a pioneer who designed the first college courses in the early 1900's to enhance the formal education of his officers (Carte, 1973). By 1976, Sherman (1978) claimed there were more than 1,000 programs available to students in higher education, with many located at community colleges. Since the 1970's, there has been a quick growth in the amount of two-year and four-year criminal justice programs across the country (Fabianic, 1977). Criminal justice courses have remained some of the most popular programs in higher education (Tontodonato, 2006). Hickman and Reaves (2003a) found that from 1990-2000, departments requiring a degree increased by 300%, with most requiring a two-year degree (Hickman & Reaves, 2003b). Today, well over half of police officers have some college experience (Polk & Armstrong, 2001).

Beyond departmental requirements, there are a range of reasons why individuals are entering criminal justice programs. Schnaz (2013) found that many students pursued a degree in criminal justice for personal satisfaction. Similarly, Malgwi et al. (2005) concluded that students' interest in the subject is the main reason they selected criminal justice majors. Sarver et al. (2010) found that the most common influence on selecting criminal justice as a major was whether a student was previously enrolled in a criminal justice course as an elective, while media portrayals were the second greatest influence. The reasons why students enrolled in criminal justice courses vary, but when most completed their degree, they felt it was a benefit (Carlan, 2006). Krimmel and Tartaro (1999) reported that after surveying 400 criminal justice students from 12 four-year colleges, 45% desired a job in law enforcement, making this the most desired job out of those surveyed. Looking at life after graduation, Courtwright and Mackey (2004) found that criminal justice students' desire to work in law enforcement was above that of students outside criminal justice majors, and law enforcement jobs were more desirable than any other job within criminal justice. Surveying criminal justice students from freshman through senior classes revealed that seniors were less likely to want a career in law enforcement compared to freshmen, but still preferred law enforcement above other career options (Walters & Kremser, 2016). Interestingly, the disparity in preference for a career in law enforcement from freshmen compared to seniors was likely attributed to misinformation and the sensationalizing of law enforcement in movies and television, as well as developments in the program that helped to inform seniors of the realities of the job (Walters & Kremser, 2016).

Regardless of students' motivations and intentions to pursue criminal justice degrees, it appears that they finished their studies feeling positive about their time in higher education. According to Tontodonato (2006), out of students who were criminology and criminal justice students, 85% were either satisfied or very satisfied upon completion of their degree.

Students in Higher Education

Looking at a range of higher education disciplines, it appears that most students are unable to properly define and identify human trafficking regardless of what degree they are seeking. By surveying more than 300 students from a northeastern university, Overholt (2013) found that most participants did not receive their information about human trafficking from nonfiction books or movies, and understood human trafficking based on fictional movies, commonly referencing the movie Taken (2008).

Undergraduate

Looking at responses from 223 undergraduate psychology students, Silver (2010) determined that students believed multiple myths about human trafficking and those beliefs led them to have varying degrees of empathy for different types of human trafficking victims, with American born prostitutes receiving the least empathy. Human trafficking myth acceptance was found to be a significant predictor in being able to believe and blame victims (Cunningham & Crowder, 2014). Acceptance of myths creates a situation where human trafficking is denied, justified, and the perpetrator excused (Cunningham & Crowder, 2014; Jones, 2012). Reid (2018) conducted pre- and post-tests of nursing faculty and senior level nursing students and learned that before participating in the educational study, neither student nor faculty member had any previous training on identifying human trafficking. By analyzing results from the self-perception assessments of registered nurses regarding their ability to identify human trafficking, Starks (2017) found that 87.6% of respondents believed that they had not treated a human trafficking victim in the past, while also having not received any training to deal with trafficking victims, which ultimately left them feeling underprepared to deal with these types of victims. Criminology and criminal justice majors were unaware of how much traffickers made (Letorneau, 2007), and most cited media portrayals as a significant source of information on human trafficking (Haroldson, 2014). Looking for a better understanding of why criminal justice students are misinformed/uninformed, Jones (2012) found that there were some differences in the way that White and non-White students responded. While only six percent of all participants choose the correct estimate of 14,500-17,499 victims trafficked to the U.S. each year, there was a significant disparity between Whites and non-Whites found in the questions pertaining to the students' perceptions of human trafficking, including that law enforcement should be the primary way of addressing human trafficking (Jones, 2012). Rather than analyzing variables amongst students, Zhilina (2012) looked at the course offerings for criminal justice students across 100 undergraduate programs and discovered that students' exposure to content about human trafficking in the classroom was limited to only a handful of undergraduate courses mentioning human trafficking in the course description. Zhilina's (2012) content analysis provided additional understanding of why criminal justice students believe myths or follow stereotypes defined by the media, as she discovered that the few courses that did mention human trafficking explicitly mentioned sex trafficking, with no courses indicating any other forms of trafficking. While the few courses that were available focus on sex trafficking, experts (Bales, 2016; Kara, 2017) agreed that a lot of human trafficking is taking place through various forms of labor trafficking. In contrast to Zhilina's (2012) content analysis findings, in 2017, Polaris released The Typology of Modern Slavery: Defining Sex and Labor Trafficking in the U.S. report that detailed that there are 25 types of human trafficking taking place in the U.S. Browder (2018) found that criminal justice students varied insofar as their acceptability of the sex trade based on gender, but both men and women perceived adults involved in the sex trade as being prostitutes instead of victims. Interestingly, Haroldson (2014) found that among criminal justice students, one of the four identified perceptions that students held was that sex trafficking was synonymous with human trafficking. Taken together with Browder's (2018) findings, it is conceivable that some criminal justice students may view only children as sex trafficking victims while also believing that this form of sex trafficking encompasses human trafficking as a whole. Sex trafficking is so ingrained in students' minds when conceiving of human trafficking, that only 15% of participants identified exploitative labor conditions as a possible form of labor trafficking (Haroldson, 2014). Looking deeper into students' misperceptions about human trafficking, Haroldson (2014) reported that 65% of criminal justice students identified the media as their source for information about human trafficking. Having students receive their information about human trafficking solely from the media opens the possibility of sensationalism being accepted as fact. As myths about human trafficking increase, the ability to identify victims decreases for criminal justice professionals (Menaker & Franklin, 2013). Identifying victims may have more to do with perspective than not having contact with victims. Cunningham & Cromer (2014) found that among undergraduate students, men experienced disbelief and accepted human trafficking myths when presented with portrayals of sex trafficking, and were more likely to blame the victims for their situation than women. Far from having to accept that individuals have different opinions and perspectives, a group of instructors used the forum of higher education to effect change. Watson et al. (2016) used a massive open online course (MOOC) to reach 30,000 students and found that the curriculum was able to positively change student's knowledge, understanding, and behavior regarding human trafficking. This positive effect was accomplished with a single online course offered over one semester. 

Graduate

Clagett (2014) found that graduate students studying psychology commonly believed in two stereotypes – victims being Asian or Hispanics, and victims being international. Furthermore, it was discovered that only 6% of the students had received any training to identify human trafficking. Nurse practitioner students who had volunteered for an educational program divulged that more than 90% had not received any training on human trafficking and 54% believed they had not encountered a victim during their time as a nurse (Onyun, 2019). Shockingly, in the same study, participants in the healthcare field explained that they were not comfortable identifying victims of human trafficking. In a nationwide study of physicians, fellows, residents, and medical students, many healthcare professionals reported human trafficking as being important, while just as many lacked knowledge about human trafficking or available resources to assist potential victims (Titchen, 2015). Zhilina (2012) found that out of 50 separate graduate programs from around the country, there was only one course offered that directly addressed human trafficking; this class appeared to focus on sex trafficking, as it made no mention of labor trafficking or other forms of trafficking in the course description. Importantly, Zhilina's (2012) findings revealed that there are few options across undergraduate and graduate criminal justice/criminology departments, with the least being offered at the graduate level.

Analysis

There has been a nationally (TVPA) and internationally (UN Protocol) accepted definition of human trafficking in existence for nearly 20 years. In spite of national and international efforts to address human trafficking, the number of victims has swelled to 35 million worldwide (Bales, 2016), and 60,000 (Farrell et al., 2010) to 100,000 victims reside in the U.S. (Kotrla, 2012). Many of the U.S. victims in labor sectors are legal visa holders who are being taken advantage of by an unfair and outdated visa system that allows employers to exploit workers from other countries. Sex trafficking in the U.S. is facilitated much differently than labor trafficking by a majority of U.S. citizens, as victims that comprise underground sex economies in U.S. cities range in size from $39 million to $810 million (Carpenter & Gates, 2016; Dank et al., 2014). 

Responding to this epidemic law enforcement has created problems identifying victims, defining what constitutes human trafficking, and getting officers the proper training about human trafficking (Farrell, Pfeffer & Bright, 2015; Grubb & Bennett, 2012; Mapp, Hornung, D'Almeida, & Juhnke, 2016; Zubairie, 2016). Law enforcements' collection of inefficiencies has led them to make the same generalizations and accusations as college students. Farrell et al. (2014) found that officers across the U.S. blamed victims for their victimization, especially those trafficked through prostitution. Cunningham and Cromer (2014) had similar feedback from college students after presenting several sex trafficking scenarios as examples. The inability to understand and identify human trafficking on the part of police officers and college students stems from the lack of education both groups have on the topic. Balderas (2006) directly compared police officers and criminal justice students in Dallas and found a “correlation between knowledge and perception among both students and police officers” (p. 44) that likely points to why human trafficking cases continue to rise, as less than 10% of both groups received training on human trafficking. 

The majority of criminal justice students desire to work in law enforcement (Courtwright & Mackey, 2004; Walters & Kremser, 2016), which is the group that is second most likely to identify human trafficking victims behind community members (Polaris, 2019). Still, criminal justice students are as uniformed about human trafficking as students in other disciplines (Browder, 2018; Clagett, 2014; Onyun, 2019; Reid, 2018; Silver, 2010). Explanations of why criminal justice students are uninformed have varied greatly, from racial differences (Jones, 2012); gender differences; media influence (Haroldson, 2014); and a lack of course selection on the topic (Zhilina, 2012). Most of the current literature is exploratory and has almost exclusively looked into variables outside the institution of higher education to explain students' perceptions and knowledge about human trafficking. Zhilina (2012) reviewed higher education offerings of courses on human trafficking, but did nothing to examine the content within the classroom or textbooks.

More than 70 years ago, Chief Vollmer believed that police officers could be better prepared for their jobs if they completed specific courses at institutions of higher education first (Carte, 1973). Academia responded by creating many programs and courses to future educate officers on the basics of the job (Polk & Armstrong, 2001; Sherman, 1978), but have yet to respond to the increasing prevalence of human trafficking as an issue that must be better addressed. Meanwhile, students are still enrolled in programs that have traditionally provided pathways to law enforcement (i.e., criminal justice).

Gaps in Literature

Police officers' and criminal justice students' knowledge of human trafficking has been measured repeatedly, and it has been definitively shown that neither group is proficient in identifying victims or understanding the particulars of the crime. For police officers, the literature supports the claim that it is the lack of prioritizing human trafficking as a policy issue and the requirement of mandatory training that keeps officers from being able to better understand human trafficking. Looking at criminal justice students' misperceptions of human trafficking, it has not yet been clarified why their understanding is so low that they have trouble identifying victims and properly defining the crime. The majority of previous studies have looked outside higher education for explanations regarding students' knowledge of human trafficking. One study identified that there are few courses on human trafficking within higher education. This has resulted in a gap in the literature that examines college students' understanding, as it identifies few course offerings on the topic without identifying what instructors are offering in other criminal justice courses. Therefore, it is the goal of this proposed research study to discover what level of understanding criminal justice educators have regarding human trafficking and how they share that information with students in higher education classrooms.

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

In this section, the purpose of the study is explained. The main research questions and sub-questions that guide this research inquiry are detailed as well. This section concludes with a description of the research design and provides a justification for the methodological approach. 

Purpose of the Study

This qualitative, exploratory study investigated the possible connection between how criminal justice faculty talk about human trafficking, how much they share their knowledge with students, how they share it, and students' understanding of the topic. The goal of this study was to investigate criminal justice instructors' knowledge and teaching style concerning human trafficking. Identifying possible correlations between educator knowledge and teaching approaches may help support further research into the problem of criminal justice students not being properly educated about human trafficking, so that they can identify victims when becoming law enforcement officers' post-graduation. 

Research Questions

The present study had two main research questions:

RQ1: How do criminal justice faculty present human trafficking in their classrooms?

RQ2: How do criminal justice faculty decide if human trafficking is relevant for their courses or not?

Research Design

This was a qualitative case study at College of DuPage, conducted to better understand how criminal justice faculty members include human trafficking into their courses. This study only looked at criminal justice instructors and their pedagogical approaches to human trafficking in the classroom. An exploratory approach is appropriate for this study, as the inductive nature of exploring focuses on previously unstudied phenomena and processes (Chambliss & Schutt, 2016). An exploratory qualitative approach asks participants to share and then build general themes based upon what is shared (Creswell, 2012). This inductive approach allowed the responses from the faculty members to guide the researcher into understanding what they know, how they know it, and how they share what they know with their students.

Stake (1978) claimed that case studies are often the preferred method of research because they may be in epistemological harmony with the readers' experience and might be generalizable by the individual. Yin (1981) suggested that case studies should be used when “…boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (p. 98). The proposed inquiry for this study fits into the literature recommendations for when to appropriately use a case study approach. Understanding the overlap of educator knowledge of human trafficking and the students' understanding of the topic is not clear. In order for the researcher to attain knowledge, immersion and concrete detail are essential (Tracy, 2010). Qualitative approaches allow body movements, pauses, and other gestures beyond words to be taken into consideration for the overall understanding of the study. To ensure that as much information is possible is gathered, triangulation will be used. In a qualitative case study, triangulation is important as it allows multiple perspectives to be achieved by confirming information through several data collection methods (Jones et al., 2014). According to Denzin (1978), using two or more data sources to arrive at the same conclusion offers greater credibility. 

Sample

A purposeful technique was used to gather in-depth information while making the most effective use of limited resources (Patton, 2002). The study used the purposeful sampling strategy of a criterion approach. A criterion approach selects participants based on the group or organization they are in and assumes that individuals have experience with the phenomenon of interest (Palinkas et al., 2015). In this study, the phenomenon of interest was how faculty shared what they know about human trafficking with their students. 

According to the most recent demographic information available in the College of DuPage 2016-2017 Fact book, in 2017, there were 26,165 students enrolled in the college. A majority (17,655) of College of DuPage students attended part-time, earning less than 12 credit hours per semester. Overall, the student body was mainly composed of individuals 24 years of age and younger, with 17,300 being under 25 years of age. 84% of students were from within the district, and most were seeking to transfer (12,958), prepare for future jobs (4,037) or improve their job skills (1,147). Many of the students' previous education consisted of a high school diploma, with 13,155 listing this as their current education level. In 2017, there were 5,700 students who earned a certificate (2,539) or degree (3,161). Within the criminal justice division, there were 64 degrees and certificates awarded in 2017, with 51 being A.A.S degrees in criminal justice. The student body was taught by 1,391 faculty members. A significant number of faculty members (829) had achieved a master's degree as their highest level of education. Part-time faculty nearly outnumbered full-time faculty 4:1, with 1,111 part-time and 280 full-time across the entire college. There were four full-time and 11 part-time faculty members teaching in the College of DuPage's criminal justice division during the 2019 fall semester. The target population for this study was the 15 faculty members that were teaching during the 2019 fall semester in the criminal justice division. While all faculty were invited to participate, the researcher only proceeded until the point of data saturation.

Participant Recruitment

The study was conducted using a convenience sample of adjunct and full-time criminal justice instructors from the College of DuPage. There were no classes in the criminal justice program that indicated that human trafficking was being covered in the name of the course or within the course description. There were 15 faculty members (four full-time and 11 part-time) teaching in the College of DuPage's criminal justice division. In order to gain an in-depth understanding of faculty members' understanding of human trafficking and how much they shared with students, one-on-one interviews were conducted with participants that consented to participate.

Faculty emails were compiled by reviewing the course online registration function that College of DuPage makes available to anyone interested in reviewing course offerings on a semester basis. The course selection feature listed class times, locations, and instructors, along with the instructors' emails. All criminal justice faculty members were emailed an invitation to participate in the one-on-one interviews. The emails explained the exploratory nature of the study and the length of time necessary to complete each interview. If an instructor did not reply to the initial offering to participate, a follow-up email was sent out two weeks after the initial email. The interviews lasted between 19 – 46 minutes each. Participants were asked to reply to the email and indicate their desire to participate, or that they had decided to decline the offer. For those who choose to participate, a time was set up to conduct the interview using Zoom's online meeting service. 15 faculty members comprised the target population. Rather than defining a specific number as necessary to achieve significance, the researcher used triangulation to achieve as much information as possible on the topic of investigation. This approach is supported by Yin (2018), who concluded that attempting to establish the typical sample size criteria is irrelevant when conducting case studies. 

Data Collection

The researcher used a semi-structured interview to guide faculty members through the interview process. The semi-structured interview was qualitative and offered interviewees the opportunity to provide open-ended responses. This study design works well to gain insight into human subjects' understanding by presenting open-ended questions without preconceived response choices, and having the interviewer listen to the interviewee articulate their own response (Creswell, 2012). Interviews were conducted one-on-one with the researcher by using Zoom, the online meeting service. One-on-one interviews were utilized because they enable interviewees to provide comments beyond the initial questions (Creswell, 2012). 

The interview survey had 11 pre-selected open-ended questions that presented interviewees with the opportunity to expand on what they knew about human trafficking and how they shared that information with their students. Interviews lasted from 19 – 46 minutes each. Additional information was gained by reviewing the course catalog. The course catalog was reviewed by the researcher to see if the terms human trafficking; sex trafficking; labor trafficking; organ trafficking; or modern-day slavery were mentioned in the course descriptions for criminal justice courses offered during the Fall of 2019. The course catalog is available online to the general public. The researcher went on to the college's website, accessed the course catalog, and reviewed the course descriptions to see if any of the terminology was mentioned.

Analysis

Open coding was used to combine faculty responses into identified categories to analyze the overall data: “Open coding involves applying codes that are derived from the text (emergent codes)” (Blair, 2015, p. 17). Identified categories were defined as themes and were then subjected to an axial coding process. Initial analysis produced dozens of codes that were placed into several themes (Creswell, 2012). Axial coding involves “connecting larger categories of codes with their individual subcategories, specifying how they relate to one another” (Floersch et al., 2010, p. 5). Through axial coding, the researcher can analyze a single theme to identify causal conditions and influencing factors that cause the phenomenon, while also identifying intervening conditions and responses (Creswell, 2012).

Interviews were conducted during the Spring 2020 semester. After interviews were completed, the online course descriptions for each of the criminal justice offerings was reviewed by the researcher in an effort to identify any inclusion of human trafficking in the courses. This helped triangulate reliable information for further analysis and provided better reliability in findings. 

To start analyzing, the researcher listened to all of the recorded interviews and transcribed them individually. Being that this is an exploratory study, the researcher used an open coding approach while reviewing the transcribed interviews and looked for overarching themes that appeared throughout the interviews to develop the coding scheme. Reviewing transcripts is recommended to immerse the researcher in the data and start the process of identifying ideas and concepts (Creswell, 2012)

Following the theme identification and the development of a coding scheme, the researcher proceeded with axial coding. Whereas open coding helps to identify broad categories within a qualitative study (Blair, 2015), axial coding attempts to explain and understand the identified categories by identifying subcategories within the larger identified category (Floersch et al., 2010). 

Ethical Considerations 

According to Orb et al. (2000), when conducting qualitative research, protecting human subjects is imperative and can be accomplished by using appropriate ethical principles that aim to do good while protecting from harm. All of the interviews will be recorded with a digital recorder, so that they can be transcribed after the interview. All recordings will be kept on the researcher's computer that is password protected. The digital recording device will be kept at the researcher's home in a secure lock box that only the researcher has the key to. To ensure the anonymity of the interviewees, names will not be used within the paper, and will instead be listed using ascribed numbers. All transcriptions will be kept on the password secure computer at the researchers' home. 

Researcher Positionality

Stewart (2010) suggested that identifying oneself as an instrument in the data collection process is a necessary discovery, should one choose to engage in constructivist research. Dickinson-Swift et al. (2009) insisted that emotions are a central construct of being human, and within social fields, emotions are at the center of the research. By putting Stewart's (2010) and Dickinson-Swift et al.'s (2009) advice and findings together while trying to understand my own theoretical perspective as a researcher, it is evident that my life affects my research goals, projects, and desired approach. 

Ever since I first learned about human trafficking in 2008, I have attempted to stop it, address it, raise awareness about it, and do many things to contribute to the fight against it. I have joined a nonprofit and assisted in creating a training course to raise police officer awareness about the signs of human trafficking. I attempted to raise awareness while driving for Uber, and by placing offers for free cups of coffee on my headrests, I was able to get riders to participate in a small research study to try and determine the average level of awareness of human trafficking for a rideshare user. In 2016, I managed to get Congressman Bill Foster of the 11^th district in Illinois to participate in a discussion panel for an event that I planned by myself at the AMC movie theater in Naperville. This event brought 160 people together to watch an educational documentary on human trafficking and raised money for a local nonprofit as well. In addition to my efforts outside of academia, I have also integrated human trafficking into my criminal justice classes, when appropriate. This has led to several of my students taking an interest in the topic. Most recently, I have designed my own course on human trafficking and modern-day slavery and was able to teach it as an accredited course in the Fall 2019 semester at a Chicagoland university within the criminal justice division. Over a decade of advocacy and raising awareness of human trafficking has helped shape my perspective of the issue and the degree to which I believe human trafficking is a significant problem.

A theoretical perspective reflects the researcher's individual standpoint regarding philosophy and the attainment of knowledge, and how these can affect the way data are interpreted (Jones et. al, 2014). My theoretical perspective for life and research is grounded in constructionism. As a researcher with a constructionist lens, I must be aware of where I place my focus during the proposed study, as the social constructionist paradigm suggests that a researcher engaged in social research should go beyond collecting facts and information and make calculations by valuing meanings and constructions to make sense of what people share about their experiences (Easterby-Smith et al., 2008)

The proposed study is an exploration into how criminal justice faculty members include human trafficking in their courses, which will be affected by my epistemological viewpoint, as “epistemological underpinnings do influence the researcher and the research” (Jones et al., 2014). Faculty member awareness of human trafficking will be explored using a constructionist and constructivist approach. These terms have been used interchangeably in the past, but there are distinctions (Jones et al., 2014). Constructionism is often connected to how collective social processes affect meaning, and constructivism looks more at how individuals learn and connect knowledge to previous understandings. Using these approaches to guide qualitative interviews, I hope to go beyond knowing what level of knowledge faculty members have regarding human trafficking; I hope to discover what value they place on human trafficking as an issue, and what they believe constitutes human trafficking. Additionally, I would like to know why they believe what they believe about human trafficking, and what processes have led them to understand it in their own way. 

Ethical Considerations

At the outset, all participants will be informed about what information will be gathered as well as the researcher's intent on using the gathered data. At this initial stage, the participants will be asked to provide consent to proceed. The consent form will detail the efforts to keep their statements confidential and will state that their inclusion in the study is voluntary. Receiving consent is necessary, as it is required by part D of the APA Ethical Principles in the Conduct of Research with Human Participants from 1973 and 1982 (Metzoff, 2005). At any point, individuals can choose to not participate and can withdraw from the study. This will be included in the informed consent form as well. Informing participants is critical, as it universally expected that researcher will share “the research aims, methods, benefits, risks and institutional affiliations of the researcher, as well as the right to refuse to participate in the research, or to withdraw consent at any time without reprisal” (Msoroka & Amundsen, 2017, p. 5).

Ensuring participant anonymity is considered a high priority for this proposed study, so that participants can feel comfortable sharing what they do and do not know about human trafficking without being exposed. According to Kaiser (2009), confidentiality is addressed during data collection and data cleaning. To ensure that faculty members' identities are not known during the data collection process, their names will not be used at any point during the study. Within the paper, they will be referred to by the letter assigned to them at the beginning of the study. Additionally, during the recorded interviews, their names will not be used, and this ensures that their names will not show up on the transcripts, either. The procedures to safeguard the participants' identities were guided by the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki (DOH) requirements, which have been considered a standard for researchers around the globe (Blackmer, 2010). Importantly, the DOH makes the primary consideration of research involving human subjects as the well-being of the human subjects.

The risk of harm appears to be minimal, as these are open-ended questions being asked to professionals, online through Zoom. However, being that human trafficking is a ubiquitous crime and some victims are unaware that they are/or have been victims, the researcher will provide a brief statement explaining that if the participant feels uncomfortable at any point, they can choose to withdraw.

Conclusion

In this chapter, the purpose of the research was explained, the justification for the research design was given, the research questions were detailed, and the methodology was covered. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the possible connection between how criminal justice faculty talk about human trafficking, how much they share their knowledge with students, how they share it, and students' understanding of the topic. The goal of this study was to investigate criminal justice instructors' knowledge and teaching style concerning human trafficking. This study was conducted using a qualitative case study approach, as Yin (1981) suggested that case studies can be effective when the boundaries between the studied phenomena are not clear. This exploratory study will use a semi-structured interview process to gain insight into faculty members' understanding on the topic of human trafficking and how they share information about human trafficking with their students. 

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS

In this chapter, the results of criminal justice educators' pedagogy regarding human trafficking are presented. Importantly, descriptive profiles of the educators who participated in this study are presented to provide context. This chapter concludes by providing the findings of the research questions as emergent themes. 

The purpose of this research study was to explore how criminal justice faculty present human trafficking in their classrooms and how they decide if it is relevant for their courses. This qualitative research study had two main research questions. Those questions were: 

RQ1: How do criminal justice faculty present human trafficking in their classrooms? 

RQ2: How do criminal justice faculty decide if human trafficking is relevant for their courses or not?

Participants

Participants for this study were selected based on two criteria: The educators had to teach in the criminal justice division at College of DuPage; and they had to teach a course during the Fall 2019 semester. Based on the sampling criteria, 15 faculty members were eligible for the study and were invited through email to participate in the study. Six participants participated in the study. The remaining eligible faculty members either declined to participate or did not respond to emails from the researcher.

The participant sample selected was fairly representative of the educators who teach criminal justice courses at the studied institution. The target population had four full-time faculty members and 11 part-time faculty members. The participants in this study were evenly divided between full-time faculty and part-time faculty, with three from both categories. While part-time faculty were underrepresented in this study, it is important to note that full-time faculty taught a total of 24 (58%) courses compared to the 17 (41%) taught by part-time faculty. When considering teaching assignments, the representation of three faculty from part-time and full-time is closer to representing the criminal justice divisions' teaching assignments. 

To provide as much contextual information as possible, the next section will feature a descriptive background for each participant. A brief summary of basic demographic information is available in Table 1.

Participant Profiles

The participants varied greatly insofar as their teaching experience, with 11 years being the least and 23 years being the longest time teaching in higher education. Each participant had unique experiences that affected the way they learned about and understood human trafficking. The experiences of each participants' professional careers affected the way they introduced human trafficking in the classroom and how they educated students on the topic.

Barb

Barb was involved in policing for 25 years and retired as a police commander. Serving as a faculty member for more than a decade, she focuses on teaching courses in forensics and police organization. In her classroom, she teaches by sharing the experiences she had in her law enforcement career. Within that career, Barb stated that in regard to seeing and addressing human trafficking, she had likely only worked one case involving human trafficking in her 25 years of law enforcement.

Barb was open about her knowledge of human trafficking. When asked about the prevalence of the crime, she stated that she did not know and, “I would be taking a guess completely.” Her understanding of human trafficking is that it generally involves “…young people brought here, usually from other countries, being sold or used for sex or sold to families.” 

Barb thinks that human trafficking could be included in criminal justice courses. She also thinks that first responders are more likely to interact with a human trafficking victim than the general public. While she supports the inclusion of human trafficking into other courses, she does not cover the topic frequently. She stated that in her courses, “I probably have brought it up a time or two, but not often.” The lack of human trafficking inclusion in her courses seems to be the product of not identifying human trafficking in her law enforcement career, and the limited amount of space dedicated to human trafficking in the textbooks she used for her classes. When asked about human trafficking being in her selected materials, she stated, “It's not in mine.”

Peter

Peter was a judge for 21 years. While still practicing law as an attorney, Peter also taught as a part-time faculty member focusing on introductory and law courses. Even while working as a judge, he taught courses part-time in higher education and, at the time of his interview, had 20 years' experience teaching at the college. In the classroom, Peter uses a standard approach of reviewing and using textbooks, lecturing, and using PowerPoint.

By relying on textbooks, life experiences, and the news to gather information about human trafficking, Peter was able to understand that human trafficking is one of the most profitable illicit crimes in the world. He was also able to recognize the systemic causes of human trafficking when he defined human trafficking as “…taking advantage of someone in a vulnerable position…”. Peter was aware that gangs are involved in sex trafficking and believed that first responders were more likely to engage a human trafficking victim than the general public. For all of the awareness and understanding that Peter had of human trafficking, he admitted that when it comes to discussing human trafficking in the classroom, “I don't spend a lot of time on it.”

While Peter saw human trafficking as a “…staggering…” problem, he did not believe it was a topic that garnered an entire course dedicated to it. Peter knew it was significant and knew that in relation to other major crimes, it was still at a serious level. He also only mentioned the topic in his courses periodically when he showed the movie Taken, and cautioned his students to be careful as they traveled, so that they would not be captured into human trafficking.

Mary

Mary has been teaching for 13 years. She earned a master's degree in homeland security first, and then a second one in criminal justice. She teaches most of the institution's courses on homeland security. In her courses, she discusses red flags of human trafficking with her students, which, in her words, focus on the “See something say something campaign for Homeland Security…”. While her understanding of human trafficking is shaped by her background in homeland security, it is also affected by her cousin who works for a nonprofit that helps assist children who have been trafficked. By having conversations with her cousin, she believed that she gained an understanding of the topic beyond what is common knowledge. 

As Mary detailed what she knew about human trafficking, she cited international estimates on the prevalence of human trafficking, the usage of visas, and the commercialization element of trafficking. Mary was the one participant who referenced an estimate that is on par with many nonprofits and experts who research and fight against human trafficking. She stated, “I could not give you statistics. I think I have heard somewhere in the vicinity of 25 million people worldwide.” Even though she understood human trafficking on an advanced level, she mentioned several times throughout the interview that she does not discuss human trafficking in her classes enough, and regrets it. Beyond teaching it in her courses, she sees the need for a standalone course on human trafficking. She believes that human trafficking should be included in criminal justice courses so much that she stated, “I am more and more persuaded that it's one of those things that we can't do without. We will look back on these days, and we will say, how did we not have more focus on that particular subject?”

As the interview was drawing to a close, Mary was sure that criminal justice students need to be educated about human trafficking and that first responders are more likely to encounter human trafficking than the general public. This sentiment was reinforced, as her concluding remarks addressed how future courses could potentially have greater inclusion of human trafficking.

Hector

Hector had 18 years of teaching in higher education at the time of the interview. He had completed his PhD and explained that his area of expertise was in high technology crime and intellectual property theft. Beyond the field of his expertise, he described his approach to teaching as being formed on a theoretical basis because he views himself as a criminologist. In his courses, Hector believed that he had a straightforward approach. 

Hector was unaware of the prevalence of the crime, though he was informed of other areas of human trafficking, including defining human trafficking and being aware of the dearth of content in textbooks. Interestingly, Hector stated that the “textbooks are doing a little better job of breaking it out so there's labor trafficking, and there's sex trafficking and there's making a distinction between trafficking and persons and human smuggling. They're doing a little bit better job.” Later in the interview, Hector recalled a textbook that underreported the issue so much that it was reduced to a single page in a criminal justice textbook that contained hundreds of pages. He detailed that the textbooks, though they were underreporting on the issue, gave him most of his understanding about human trafficking because it was not a topic that he researched heavily. 

When discussing how he educates his students about human trafficking, Hector explained that he taught “a little bit” about human trafficking, and that what he did teach, he kept “consistent with the textbooks…”. Hector believed that human trafficking was a worthwhile cause to teach to criminal justice students, but also believed that though there was much that students would benefit from knowing, there is not enough time to address everything appropriately. He made it clear that “we talk about police hiring and training and leadership currently, that's at the forefront of our menu as it relates to priorities.” He continued by suggesting that other institutions outside of community colleges were better suited to address the topic of human trafficking. 

Hector believed that his students should know what human trafficking is and that it exists. He explained that knowing how to identify it would be beneficial, so that if they encountered a victim at some point, they would be able to recognize that person and respond accordingly. However, when talking about what the students knew about human trafficking, he stated, “I think there's a little bit of ignorance as it relates to the fact that people are still enslaved today.” This was interesting, because his evaluation of the textbooks was that they had improved, but in the example, he shared that there was only one page of content related to human trafficking in the entire text. Additionally, he did not view human trafficking as a pressing need to be taught by all instructors, but he did see the benefits of giving students a basic knowledge of the crime. Overall, this implied that he believed students were largely unaware of the crime altogether.

Trisha

Trisha completed her PhD and had 23 years of experience teaching either education or criminal justice courses as a part-time faculty member. She enjoyed the ability to select only the classes she wanted to teach. Her teaching style differed based on the course she taught, as some courses would have her using a theoretical approach and others were more foundational. She considered her expertise to be in juvenile justice and detailed the hands-on experience and interactive work students perform in her juvenile delinquency course. 

As Trisha detailed her understanding of human trafficking, she expressed concern over the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes human trafficking several times during the interview. She stated, “there is no defined definition and there's overlap, so that has to also intertwine, you can't separate.” Beyond the definition of human trafficking, Trisha also found it difficult to estimate the amount of human trafficking taking place throughout the world. When asked about human trafficking prevalence, she stated, “when we look at numbers, I'm not sure, prevalence, I'm not sure.” While Trisha did not have a clear definition of human trafficking and was not exactly sure of the prevalence of human trafficking, she did still include human trafficking in her courses when appropriate. It was not clear at what point human trafficking was pertinent to the curriculum and introduced in her courses, but she was clear that “by the time they graduate with their associate's, they should know what it is…they should be able to explain it.” 

Interestingly, Trisha believed that students should have a certain level of understanding of human trafficking. She believed that everyday citizens were the ones that would identify victims more than law enforcement officers. She stated that the only way police officers would identify victims more than the general public would be if they were over-policing. It was not clear why she believed the students needed to have a basic understanding of human trafficking.

When asked about how educators could be supported to include human trafficking in their courses, Trisha believed that the only way the topic could be included in the courses was if the instructor desired it. She was clear that curricular freedom should be allowed, and instructors should not be forced to teach about human trafficking because there are an array of other pertinent topics that could be justified to be included as well. 

Lisa

Lisa had 15 years of teaching experience spread across multiple community colleges. At the current institution, she is the primary instructor for legal courses. With a Juris Doctorate, Lisa has the necessary academic qualifications to be responsible for the legal courses. She also has more than a decade of experience as a practicing attorney. Lisa's expertise is in the law and her primary course load demonstrated that she normally taught constitutional law, criminal law, court evidence, and mock trials.

When asked about her understanding of human trafficking and the prevalence of the crime in the U.S., she stated, “If I had to say percentages, I would say 50% in the US, I think it's a pretty high number. If I go by my definition, right? The unwanted movement.” When asked to clarify whether she meant that 50% of all the people in the U.S. have been victims of human trafficking, she answered with the following:

I think at some point, yes. Now whether it is continuous or not, is a different story. But I think most women, at least I can just speak for women, most women I know have experienced some form of human trafficking, to be quite honest. So that is why that number is so high. If we are talking about something that is continuous, obviously it would be, I am thinking maybe 15 to 25% on a continuous basis. I feel like, internationally, it is actually higher because women within the US, men within the US, because people can be trafficked both ways, they tend to have less civil rights and constitutional rights and things like that. So, I think the number would even be higher and be that true 50 to 60%, I believe.

Themes

By interviewing participants and reviewing transcripts, an iterative cyclical process of analysis was used that allowed patterns and themes to be identified from the data in a natural way. I analyzed everyone separately and then compared them with other individuals as I analyzed and searched for similarities, differences, and generalities across all participants. 

While identifying answers to the main research questions of this study, there were three significant themes that emerged from the information shared by the participants, including understanding of human trafficking, inclusion of human trafficking in courses, and shared governance. The information and details shared by the participants, organized into themes, answers the research questions detailed above. 

Understanding of Human Trafficking

Participants in this study reported a wide range of understanding what human trafficking is. This included being able to define human trafficking and estimating its prevalence. The participants' abilities to define human trafficking or discuss its components fluctuate based on their understanding of human trafficking. Participants gained knowledge and understanding about human trafficking from several sources that included research articles, textbooks, family members, and news channels. The participants' understandings of human trafficking may affect their ability to accurately convey a sufficient amount of information about it to their students, which will be described below within the following subthemes.

Scope.

A prominent theme that emerged from the participant interviews were the ways the participants defined human trafficking and its scope. Barb described human trafficking as consisting of “…generally young people, kids, young people brought here, usually from other countries, being sold or used for sex or sold to families.” Each of the participants identified human trafficking as either a domestic, global, or domestic and global problem. A majority of the participants identified vulnerability as increasing the risk of being trafficked, either domestically or globally. Mary believed that the U.S. was experiencing a problem with human trafficking, stating that:

On the more micro level too, the impact of social media on recruitment and grooming, and all of those things that play in as well. Then the U.S. being, well, really a transit country, a destination country, and a supply country, for this problem, I am ashamed to say. But there is that domestic component too. I think one of the biggest problems is that we just do not talk about the issue enough.

Peter also recognized a domestic problem with human trafficking in the U.S. On the domestic side, he thought that “…Chicago is a hub for human trafficking, especially during major events, like the Super Bowl and things like that.”

Global. 

Mary was one of two participants who identified human trafficking as a global and domestic problem. When she addressed the global problem, she described it as follows:

Human trafficking is a global problem; it is not one that we only have here at home. I would define human trafficking as being the apprehension, for lack of a better word. Of an individual or individuals, against their will, or for the purpose of exploitation without their knowledge. A lot of people probably get into the human trafficking world, without realizing that is where they are going. Because usually they are targeting impoverished people. People without better opportunities. Luring them in with the promise of a better life. Those types of things. Then through drugs, or money, or power and control. Through threats. Keeping them in that slave state.

While Mary was able to articulate that she knew human trafficking was a problem in the U.S. and in the rest of the world, Hector stated: “My understanding of it is, it's a global problem, it's not a domestic problem.”

Vulnerability. 

While Hector was unaware of the domestic issue of human trafficking, he was aware that as a crime, “these things are remarkably under reported.” Hector shared his definition of human trafficking as follows:

I suppose I would say that human trafficking is a crime that's perpetrated by people in positions of power, in some cases authority, who capitalize on the unwitting and the often weaker, the financially disadvantaged in an effort to force them into industries principally sex, but other industries as well, and they utilize them in order to profit.

Mary and Hector offered complete definitions of human trafficking that addressed more than simply identifying it as a crime that preys primarily on vulnerable people and groups. Peter recognized that vulnerability was key but was not able to define a significant number of details beyond being aware of the domestic and international scope of the crime. Barb did not mention vulnerability at all, and saw human trafficking as affecting young foreign national children brought into the U.S.

Peter believed that “Human trafficking is taking advantage of someone in a vulnerable position…” and that human trafficking is “the third most illicit trade in the world.” Trisha also recognized young kids as being victimized and that vulnerability was a causative factor. Trisha stated: “When we are looking at human trafficking, yes, adults are trafficked, but vulnerable populations are usually the ones that are targeted, and can adults be vulnerable? Yes. But who is most vulnerable in our population? It is usually young kids or young children, youth.”

Trisha felt like her understanding of human trafficking was sufficient to teach the topic in a classroom: “Yeah. I think I know what is necessary to know as an academic who touches base on it.” However, when it came to defining human trafficking beyond kids and vulnerability, Trisha stated that a reliable definition did not exist: “Am I an expert? Absolutely not. I just read the studies that pertain to what I was researching. And this is where it would be much better, I think, for academics. I do not know. I guess there's two sides to that story too if there was a clear definition.”

Sources/Information. 

The ability to define human trafficking accurately relies on solid information. The participants' sources for information on the topic ranged from family members who work in the anti-trafficking field to Hollywood movies like Taken. Barb received her information about human trafficking from a range of sources that included police officers, magazines, and news bulletins: 

Speaking with other law enforcement officers and then reading periodicals. I am a member of the IACP, which is the International Association of Chiefs of Police Association. I get the magazine monthly and they have had information on human trafficking. I am a member of the FBI National Association. I went there for 10 weeks for training. I get a monthly bulletin and I get a non-monthly newsletter from them, a monthly magazine.

Similar to Barb, Peter received his information about human trafficking from a range of sources:

Probably life experiences, and then in… The news hits it very little. So, I'd say life experiences and my preparation for lectures in my classroom.”. However, when Peter was asked about his teaching style, he mentioned reviewing the textbooks before class. When asked how much human trafficking content was in the textbooks, he responded “Very little, very little.”

Lisa gained her information on the topic from different sources: “I look at various articles, we have a lot of symposiums, research symposiums, within our full-time faculty… So, it comes up quite a bit actually, and I do try and engage in those.” Lisa mentioned that she liked to watch documentaries as well and was trying to remember the name of a bigger Hollywood movie that addressed human trafficking. When she was asked if the movie was Taken with Liam Neeson, this was her reply:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was probably my first Hollywood experience, but other than that, I would say more documentaries. I am not big on just mainstream because I am very big on trying to see where the source is coming from. So, I would not just look at news reports unless I can validate the source, because I do not take in news that I can't validate.

Mary initially stated that she learned about human trafficking “just through my own internet searching for the most part.” She then revealed that she had another source for information: “My cousin… She works with a nonprofit that recovers children. She is the chief administrator for that organization. We have conversations about some of the things that maybe are not common knowledge, and not publicized.”

Hector was the only participant who stated that he received his information about human trafficking from one source: 

My understanding of it I think is that it's been developed from the textbooks, because it's not an area that I've researched intensively. In the beginning, most human trafficking that I learned about, my understanding was related to sex trafficking. That was the majority of any reference in textbooks, and it usually was an afterthought, that's how I would describe it.

Trisha was the only participant who said she learned about human trafficking because she had an interest in the topic. When asked where she got her information about human trafficking, she responded, “Oh, just through my own research. …Because I had an interest in the area,” to which she added, “Was it taught in my graduate classes? No. It was more of my own interest area.”

Teaching Style. 

The participants taught their classes using different approaches and focused on theoretical and foundational aspects of criminal justice based on the courses they taught. Some relied on lectures and textbooks to include the necessary content, while others used no textbooks in their courses and curated their own course content. Peter explained that he “would use lectures most of the time. I would use PowerPoint. I also shared my lecture notes with the class so that they could use that as a study guide. And that is basically how I taught.” Trisha's style of teaching focused on more interactions: “We have very interactive classrooms in my class, and in my juvenile class, they get to work with IOIC too, so they get to volunteer with juveniles.” For Hector, teaching each course meant he needed to ensure he covered the basics of that topic:

So, all of these things were coming about simultaneously. So, in my classes, I of course have I think very practical aspects of just straight forward this is what criminal justice is, this is introduction courses, this is how we define crime and deviance in my criminology courses…

Hector's teaching style was also affected by his theoretical perspective of criminal justice:

My area of study is in, broadly, high technology crime, most specifically in intellectual property theft. But at the end of the day, everything that I teach, and everything that I have been trained to do is from a theoretical basis, so I would describe myself as a behavioral scientist, I'm a criminologist.

Hector saw community college as an environment that required a different style of teaching: “You have to remember that I think the way and what we teach at community colleges is different than at the university. What I mean by that is that we are a teaching institution so therefore we are often constrained by the sheer number and quantity of things that we do.”

Hector also elaborated on the types of courses offered at community college: “So, they have to give them the basics, as I call it the sample platter course, many of our courses are, they're sample platter courses.”

Lisa's teaching style focused on discussions more than lectures: “I have more of a discussion-based instruction model. So, my expectation for my students is that they will read their textbook material, or articles, or so on and so forth, cases prior to our school session, and when we meet, we discuss those principles that I think are important.” 

Like Peter, Trisha did not detail whether her textbooks or other course resources explicitly detailed the topic of human trafficking. Instead, she explained how the topic came up in her courses as a part of interactive learning: “There's sometimes where they just come up and it is not what we're talking about, but it intertwines, and so that happens. So, I think when you have an open classroom that's really interactive learning, you learn that sometimes you go with where the lesson plan goes, and it's fluid.” Trisha continued to explain that the topic only came up as a result of something outside the texts and resources: “So, when those topics come up, or when they are prevalent to our curriculum, absolutely.”

Inclusion of Human Trafficking. 

Participants made it clear that they did not include the topic of human trafficking in any of their courses to a significant degree. Reasons for not including the topic included not having a proper definition of the crime to relying on the students or the textbook to mention it first. There was a consensus among a majority of participants that if human trafficking was taught in a criminal justice course, the course that it should be taught in was introduction to criminal justice.

Teaching Human Trafficking. 

During the interviews, the participants detailed their beliefs about how much information their students should have on human trafficking, including their level of understanding, the students' desire to join law enforcement, and how knowing about human trafficking would affect them in that career path. All the participants agreed that at a minimum, human trafficking should be included in criminal justice courses. 

Peter wanted students to know at least two things about human trafficking: “I think they should know the fundamentals… one, it exists, and two, how to notice it.” Barb was not as specific as Peter, but nonetheless believed that “…it would be good to include it in the classes.” 

Mary emphasized the need for the discipline of criminal justice to include the topic:

“I would say any student of anything should be informed about human trafficking. But particularly criminal justice students.” Trisha detailed what students should know on the topic before graduation:

Okay. Well, by the time they get out, by the time they graduate with their associate's, they should know what it is, they should, even though there is not one definition, they should be able to explain it. They should be able to explain the likelihoods of, for my class, does it make you more or less likely to cause a delinquent act?

Lisa wanted her students to be able to “recognize and understand it and respond appropriately.” She was also aware that a sizable portion of her students desired to work in law enforcement post-graduation, and being introduced to human trafficking while they were in higher education might be their only exposure to quality education on the topic. Lisa shared her thoughts on the prospect of students being introduced to human trafficking information with the following:

I would say on the basic level, you need to know the definition, right? So, a working definition that is specific to industry. I think the next thing would be what resources are available…We still have probably 70% to 75% of our students are seeking some sort of law or law enforcement career, if we do not introduce them, they are barely going to get that introduction in academia. 

Hector believed that students were unaware of human trafficking: “I think there's a little bit of ignorance as it relates to the fact that people are still enslaved today.” At the same time, Hector was of the opinion that students should know about human trafficking: “Well, I think they should definitely be able to know that it's real, that it's happening, that it's not something from the past.” The specifics of what Hector believed students should know was general information:

“And being able to recognize some general basic forms of that so that maybe if they come in contact with a victim or they see it happening in their neighborhood.”

First Responders. 

All but one of the educators agreed that first responders would be exposed to more human trafficking than the average citizen. When asked about first responders' exposure, Peter thought for a moment, and then stated, “I would say that they probably do.” Barb was much more certain that first responders had increased interactions with human trafficking by answering the same question: “Oh yeah definitely.”. Hector was just as sure when he answered: “Absolutely, yeah without a doubt.” Mary followed suit and agreed emphatically: “Absolutely, yes. I do.” Mary also added some detail about first responder's awareness to human trafficking:

“Yeah, and I would think the police officers interact with those people far more than they realize too. Whether they are responding to a drug call, or a domestic abuse call, or anything like that. I'm sure there's a lot more going on than they even realize.”

Lisa agreed with Mary's statement by explaining how interconnected law enforcement and human trafficking are: “I would even go further and say it would be difficult for them to have that type of career without having interaction with someone.” Trisha believed that citizens would interact and identify possible victims more than first responders: “No. I think us everyday citizens sometimes ignore things that we see.”

Trisha did believe that first responders should know more about the topic: “They should be more informed and understand more so than the general public.” When asked about an average day of working in an office for an average citizen compared to an average day for a police officer, Trisha was still firm that community members should be identifying human trafficking more: “Only if you're over-policing that community. Otherwise, it is the neighbor, and they're responsible for getting the word out.” 

Afterthought. 

Lisa included human trafficking in some of her courses more than others: “I do teach intro almost every semester as a point of connection to new people coming in. I wouldn't say I introduce it all the time, but as I was thinking about this interview this morning, I was thinking, for me, intro is sort of the foundation for CJ.” Lisa reiterated the intro course and the inclusion of human trafficking as being “intermittently in intro.” Lisa also mentioned one course outside of intro in which she educates students about human trafficking: “So, as I said, it almost always is interjected in courts, evidence, and mock trial, just because it's a natural place to talk about how the evidence in most of those cases is very convoluted because of the emotional attachments.”

While stating on multiple occasions that the topic deserved more attention, Mary admitted: “My focus is more usually on terrorism, or on geopolitics, and some of those larger issues. This gets lost in the shuffle, and it really shouldn't.” Similar to her colleagues, Barb did not include human trafficking in her courses to a significant degree. Barb's inclusion of human trafficking in her classroom was not planned ahead of time, but she mentioned at least two courses where the topic could be included, and one of those was introduction to criminal justice (intro): 

Yeah. You know, in crime prevention, it comes up. It is definitely in there. We cover it. You know, forensics, I mean, any time that you can bring it up, it is brought up, but is it part of the curriculum of what I have? No, but when there is an opportunity … I would say in crime prevention, it is definitely there to discuss. I do not teach intro on a regular basis, but as big as that is, that is pretty much it.

Barb was clear that when she does discuss human trafficking, it is limited: “I probably have brought it up a time or two, but not often.” Peter echoed Barb's sentiments about not including human trafficking in any of his courses to a significant degree, stating, “I don't spend a lot of time on it.”

Intentional Inclusion/Specific Courses to Include Human Trafficking. 

All of the participants mentioned human trafficking being discussed in their classrooms to varying degrees. The majority consensus was that the introduction to criminal justice course was the most appropriate course to introduce the topic to students. The intentionality of including human trafficking content in any course varied greatly among participants.

Outside of the intro course, two participants (Barb and Trisha) saw value in adding human trafficking to future courses without specifying the intro course. Barb stated: “I think it would be good to include it in the classes. Some students are more interested in that topic than others, so I think to include it would be good.”

Introduction to Criminal Justice Course. 

Mary discussed human trafficking in her courses and believed others should include it in their courses too, especially intro courses: “Certainly, in an intro course, or something like that. It should be talked about.” Hector agreed that the intro course was a good place to include human trafficking: “I think our intro courses, I think students, that's the first opportunity to make that a touchpoint, and there will be a percentage of them who are like I'm interested in that.” Peter also saw the intro course as an opportunity to introduce the topic: “…I think it could be combined. That's why I like introduction to criminal justice…” Peter also shared how he did introduce the topic of human trafficking frequently into his intro course only when time permitted, and he shared information with his students by using movies:

Not very much, but what I did do periodically, if I had enough time and depending on how long the class was, I would entertain the students with a movie like Taken. And I said, folks this is Spring Break, or whatever break you want to call it. This is prime time to be captured, so to speak, to be victimized. So, I said Don't let your guard down. And this movie, Taken, shows you an example of it.

Like Barb, Trisha did not point to the intro course as an area where human trafficking could be taught. Trisha believed that human trafficking should be included in courses “when those topics come up, or when they are prevalent to our curriculum, absolutely.” Trisha clarified how the topic of human trafficking could come up in class without planning for it:

And then, there is sometimes where they just come up and it is not what we are talking about, but it intertwines, and so that happens. So, I think when you have an open classroom that's really interactive learning, you learn that sometimes you go with where the lesson plan goes, and it is fluid.

Standalone course. 

Mary was the only educator who believed that human trafficking could be taught as a standalone course: “If not as a standalone course, then certainly as a subset of any Homeland Security course. I could see room for it being there.” Mary continued to explain why a standalone course on human trafficking should exist: “I am more and more persuaded that it's one of those things that we can't do without. We will look back on these days, and we will say, ‘How did we not have more focus on that particular subject?' As I said, I think it could be a standalone course.” Peter did not share Mary's enthusiasm for having an entire course devoted to human trafficking: “I don't know if at this point there's enough to do a whole course on it, but I think it could be combined.”

Hector did not state a desire for an entire course on human trafficking either, but he did state a personal preference to see it included in courses to a greater degree: “I guess, does it deserve more? I suppose it depends on who you ask. If you ask me, I am a little biased, so of course I'd like to see half a chapter in there on that.” While Hector supported the idea of including human trafficking to a greater degree, he viewed human trafficking and other course content as being a sampling of topics for students that should not be too heavy in any course: “These become, I guess we could classify them as niche areas, they're specialty topics” and “So, they have to give them the basics, as I call it the sample platter course, many of our courses are, they're sample platter courses.”

Course Materials. 

The educators used a range of materials to discuss human trafficking in their courses. Some used textbooks while others opted for movies, and others elected to have discussions on the topic. 

Books. 

Lisa was trying to not use textbooks in her classes, but was able to detail where information on human trafficking would come from other books that she used in her courses:

Black's law is a great resource. Within Black's Law, there are actually links to articles, they are linked to cases, linked to what we call, everyone else calls them, but we call them treatises. So those things that would then be specific to human trafficking. Then I use the obvious, the social sciences databases for articles, but I am trying to think of where that would sort of come from, specifics, and I am blanking right now. I think if a student, like in my intro course, their assignment is to write what they want to do in the future, it does not have to be in criminal justice. So, if someone said I wanted to be an advocate, human trafficking advocate or something like that, then I would then help them formulate a whole research plan around that. So, it happens in different ways, but given specifically to the class, I would say it's based on the law and the treatises in the cases.”

According to Lisa, even if she were to use a textbook in her courses, it would be difficult to include human trafficking because “in most of our texts, human trafficking isn't even mentioned.” 

Discussion. 

For Trisha, an open classroom was part of the materials she used to teach. When asked about how she included human trafficking content into her courses, she explained “when those topics come up, or when they are prevalent to our curriculum, absolutely.” She continued: “There's sometimes where they just come up and it's not what we're talking about, but it intertwines, and so that happens. So, I think when you have an open classroom that's really interactive learning, you learn that sometimes you go with where the lesson plan goes, and it's fluid.”

Media/Videos. 

Peter did not detail if any of his textbooks included the topic, but he did share an example of how he introduces students to the topic of human trafficking: “This is prime time to be captured, so to speak, to be victimized. So, I said Don't let your guard down. And this movie, Taken, shows you an example of it.”

Selection of Material Process. 

When it came to selecting materials for their courses, the educators used various combinations of articles and databases in conjunction with news media and traditional textbooks. Peter relied on instructor copies for review and recommendations from colleagues: “What I usually do is ask the other professors what they were using, or I already have some experience with the authors…” he added that the next step would be to “…and then I would use free samples, look at them and decide which one I wanted to use.”

Barb did not seek any advice or use additional content outside of using a textbook. When asked how she selected materials, she stated: “I review them. I review the texts for the course itself.” Like Barb and Peter, Hector relied on textbooks, but he did use outside information to supplement his courses. Hector's process for selecting materials entails the following: “We will receive books from publishers, we'll do a quick review of it, look at the table of contents, read a couple of the chapters. Consider of course ancillary material, and that's really there's not much more to it I suppose.” Hector added, “I should say, there have been a time or two where someone's told me, this is a really good book, you should use it.”

Trisha had a similar approach to selecting materials as Hector, by combining textbooks with outside sources. She explained: “I'm very picky. I go through my textbooks with a fine-toothed comb.” In addition to the textbooks, Trisha stated that “my interactive activities come a lot from research articles.” 

While a majority of the participants preferred using a textbook in some capacity for their courses, Lisa and Mary selected materials independent of a textbook when possible. Lisa's material selection process was continuous and relied on academic journals: “I would say I update almost every other semester” and “I start at the Supreme court level, and then I start to look around in academic journals and articles. If it is not important, I'm actually moving away from textbooks.”

Mary seemed to be the faculty member who relied on textbooks the least when she selected materials for her course. She provided her reasoning for not using textbooks and how she decided which information to use in her courses:

I turn on the news, and I start there. I do not have a textbook in most of my classes, because they are outdated by the time the semester ends. We are on to new and bigger problems. I really just like to keep my courses as current and up to date as possible, and so we talk about the issues. I realize that the fact that there is a lot of fake news out there. Using multiple sources for any given topic is important to me. But there are so many government resources out there that are free, or at least taxpayer funded. I like to use, however accurate they are, I like to use those, just to help the students out, so they do not have to pay for a textbook that is going to be pretty much obsolete in three or four months.

Mary detailed several topics about human trafficking that she included in her courses, but did not state exactly where that information came from. Mary admitted: “I don't even have a textbook in most of my classes.” While Mary believed in using sources outside a traditional textbook, she also believed: “I think one of the biggest problems is that we just don't talk about the issue enough.” She did not exclude herself from being a part of the problem she identified: “I'm ashamed to say, I don't spend a lot of class time really talking about human trafficking as its own issue.” 

Issue With the content and quantity of the Inclusion of Human Trafficking in the Course Materials. 

Hector commented on the amount of content that was available in the textbooks he used for his courses: “I think in most of them, you'll see some paragraph or two that's in a few of the last chapters, maybe the last chapter, or the second to the last chapter. I think that's pretty common, pretty consistent.” During the interview, Hector grabbed one of his textbooks and searched for human trafficking within the book and shared his findings: “But it's literally one page is what they're providing, one page.” Hector was not satisfied with the amount of content in his textbooks: “I guess, does it deserve more? I suppose it depends on who you ask. If you ask me, I am a little biased, so of course I'd like to see half a chapter in there on that.”

Barb found similar results when looking through her textbooks: “I review them. I review the texts for the course itself.” Where Hector found one page of content, Barb said: “It's not in mine.”

Curriculum

The educators shared their specific areas of expertise, and some explained how that expertise affected how they taught their courses. Beyond their expertise, they discussed their desire to see human trafficking be included in more courses in the future. A majority of the educators preferred some form of shared governance to increase the amount of content that covered human trafficking in criminal justice courses. 

Instructor expertise. 

Peter mentioned how he used his 20 plus years of experience as a judge as a source for content to teach: “I would use as my background…contents of book…” Barb used a similar approach by relying on her decades of experience in policing, where she retired as a police commander: “I bring the experience that I had from my police experience combining that with what's in the text…”

The other faculty members had their own backgrounds in various topics but did not mention using those backgrounds as content for their courses. Mary noted: “My background is in private sector emergency and operations management.” She never alluded to how this affected her courses or the content. Lisa explained how her background affected what she would teach but now how she taught: “My terminal degree was a Juris doctorate. So, I was hired to be responsible for the legal courses, but since I have been there, I have also obtained a master's in criminal justice. So now I am the only professor that can teach all of the courses, at this time.”

Instructor autonomy. 

While a majority of participants believed shared governance was the best way to include human trafficking content in future courses, Trisha was the only instructor who believed that the administration being involved would be overbearing on the instructor's freedom to create and adjust the curriculum: “Could we force them to? Well, sure, but I also feel they should be forced to have intertwined in the curriculum so many other things that aren't because you can't separate that.” She continued to explain how the instructor must desire to teach a topic “with academic freedom, I really think you have to rely on faculty wanting to, right?” When it was suggested that rather than mandating or requiring instructors to teach the topic there might be assistance to help teach the topic instead, Lisa responded: “No, I think in our classrooms, we have to want to.”

Shared governance. 

There was a near unanimous consensus among the educators that in order to include human trafficking as a topic in future courses, the administration should be a part of that process. Only one instructor believed that it should be left to the instructor(s) to decide if the topic should be introduced into the course and to what degree. Barb wanted the administration to support inclusion of the topic without mandating its inclusion: “I think it would be okay. Do I think it should be mandated? I do not know. I think there are several topics that are out there that are not included currently that should be, so I think it could be discussed. I don't know that it should be mandated.” At the same time, she suggested that mandating the course would be a way of supporting it being included in future courses: “Well, yeah, if they mandated it then that would be supporting it, or just bringing it up at a faculty meeting.” Barb also saw faculty meetings and emails as a way to increase inclusion of the topic in future courses: “Just bringing it up at faculty meetings, which we don't really have. It would be nice. Or send an email out if it seems to be a concern or send out literature on it.” When asked if she were provided with additional literature on the topic, would she include that in her courses? She stated: “Yeah”. 

Peter mentioned the faculty meetings as an avenue to greater inclusion by possibly adjusting the course descriptions:

Well, I would assume that when we have meetings as a group, you could talk and discuss areas that you would like to broaden. And like I said, immigration would be one of these areas that you could get into; the visas, you can get into the human trafficking, et cetera, because you are victimized too. But I think it is cooperation and just knowing that you only have so much time in any class to teach something, especially an intro class. So, if everyone went through and decided to at least modify the description of this course, then that is where you could soak something in there.

Peter continued to explain how adjusting the course outline and description could affect inclusion of human trafficking in future courses: “Yeah. And so, you know, it is called a topical outline or something. I'm trying to think of the summary. If you go into the catalog of the course offerings, there is usually a little paragraph of what they are going to cover.”

Mary lamented on the benefits of discussing human trafficking in meetings: “I think just getting a bunch of people, with maybe different specialties, in a room to talk about this one issue, would inspire a lot of desire to incorporate it a little bit more formally. It's hard to make a case that we shouldn't.” 

Hector wanted to have administration provide an advisory board that could make recommendations about what could be included in courses:

I think administration can create conditions that are favorable for us to continue to update our active course files. I also think they should be encouraging and trying to identify themselves or help us identify people that are maybe on our advisory board and then the advisory board can make recommendations to course work or adjustments to our active course files. I think those are useful and helpful things.

Lisa believed that disciplines outside criminal justice could be a part of the process to have criminal justice instructors include the topic of human trafficking in their future courses:

I think that they do what they need to do, but I think this probably needs to be sort of a campaign of understanding. So, the way that the movement within our faculty, the way something really gets to be a hot topic or a hot button, is that someone takes it up as a campaign and they go to every area of the college to try and get people involved. 

Summary

In this chapter, the results of criminal justice educators' pedagogy regarding human trafficking were covered. Descriptive profiles of each participant were provided. Various themes were identified as findings of the research questions. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the possible connection between how criminal justice faculty talk about human trafficking, how much they share their knowledge with students, how they share it, and students' understanding of the topic. This qualitative research study had two main research questions. Those questions were: 

RQ1: How do criminal justice faculty present human trafficking in their classrooms? 

RQ2: How do criminal justice faculty decide if human trafficking is relevant for their courses or not?

CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the possible connection between how criminal justice faculty talk about human trafficking, how much they share their knowledge with students, how they share it, and students' understanding of the topic. In this chapter, a summary of the findings will be presented and examined considering the literature on criminal justice and academia. Additionally, implications for further research will be discussed. The chapter will end by presenting the limitations of the research study and a conclusion.

Summary of Findings

Six criminal justice instructors from the College of DuPage participated in this research study. All of the interviews were conducted through Zoom and lasted between 19 and 46 minutes and were transcribed once the final interview was completed. To begin analyzing the data, an inductive approach was used to go through all of the transcripts: “This inductive strategy can yield appreciable benefits…” (Yin, 2016, p. 169), including the ability to “…assign various kinds of codes to the data, each code representing a concept or abstraction of potential interest.” (Yin, 2016, p. 169). First, I coded each of the interviews by creating categories. To create categories, I used notes that I took during the interview process in conjunction with reviewing the transcribed interviews. Second, I analyzed each of the interviews closely for naturally emerging patterns. As a result of these efforts, three main themes emerged: Understanding of human trafficking, inclusion of human trafficking, and shared governance. The following section has a summary of the themes presented.

Understanding of Human Trafficking

The participants' understanding of human trafficking varied significantly from one participant to the next. This finding is consistent with Pfeffer (2018), who stated that “disparities in definitions of human trafficking, a problem both within and across borders, is a fundamental challenge” (p. 23). The participants' understanding of human trafficking varied on the issues of inclusion of vulnerability, seeing the crime as a domestic versus a global issue, and whether or not a reliable definition of the crime exists.

A majority of the participants were aware that vulnerabilities made individuals and groups more susceptible to being trafficked, but they were not able to consistently define what these vulnerabilities were. According to Sadler (2019), while identifying signs of vulnerability is the best way to recognize human trafficking, the list of vulnerabilities is extensive and includes personal details; ability to move; signs of abuse or threats; and signs of commercial exploitation. The variations in understanding vulnerability as a part of human trafficking did not appear to affect the participants' definitions of human trafficking. Those who identified vulnerabilities as a significant part of human trafficking offered a range of definitions that were comprehensive and included domestic and global populations, while others stated multiple times that there was no definition of the crime. Additionally, those who did not mention vulnerabilities were still aware that youth were at a risk of being trafficked, as were those who specifically stated that vulnerabilities were what made kids at risk. 

The participants' understanding of human trafficking came from a relatively small number of sources. Course textbooks and the news were the main sources of information mentioned during the interview process. Similar to the participants of this study, the media played a significant role in shaping students' perceptions of human trafficking, with nearly two-thirds listing the media as a source for human trafficking information (Haroldson, 2014). The participants' reliance on the textbooks was underlined by the brief inclusion of the topic within the textbooks, as multiple participants commented on the amount of space the textbooks dedicated to human trafficking. 

In this study, Trisha was the only one who explicitly stated that she had an interest in human trafficking. She explained that her information on the topic came from research articles. While a majority of the participants agreed that students should be able to know what human trafficking is and define it by the time they completed their degree, most of the participants themselves had difficulty defining the crime.

Inclusion of Human Trafficking

 The participants unanimously agreed that human trafficking should be included within the criminal justice curriculum. Five of the six participants also agreed that the introduction to criminal justice course was an ideal place to introduce the topic to students. However, beyond the inclusion within this one course, their opinions about where and when the topic should be introduced to students and how it should be discussed varied significantly. While all the participants believed in the inclusion of human trafficking into the overall curriculum, none of them included human trafficking in their own courses to a significant degree, including those who often taught introduction to criminal justice. 

When asked about including the topic in their own classrooms, the participants replied with “intermittently,” “This gets lost in the shuffle…,” “I have probably brought it up a time or two,” and “I don't spend a lot of time on it.” At least one of the participants was aware that the absence of human trafficking in the classroom had potentially farther-reaching implications by recognizing, “if we do not introduce them, they are barely going to get that at the academy.” 

Many of the participants relied on textbooks to include the topic of human trafficking in their classrooms, but some participants relied on students to bring up the topic during open discussions, while others used supplemental materials to introduce the subject matter. In all cases, human trafficking was treated as a footnote within the course. This included the introduction to criminal justice course, which most agreed was an appropriate place for the topic, and other criminal justice courses including homeland security and crime prevention courses were equally lacking substantial inclusion about human trafficking. The findings from this section are consistent with Zhilina's (2012) study that reviewed course offerings for criminal justice students across 100 undergraduate programs and found that students' exposure to content about human trafficking was limited to three courses that “mentioned the subject of human trafficking in the descriptions but did not indicate it as a focus” (p. 478).

Shared Governance

A majority of the participants indicated that they preferred some form of shared governance with the institution to help increase the amount of human trafficking content within the criminal justice curriculum, instead of adding information about human trafficking into the course themselves. This is consistent with Pfeffer (2018), who suggested increasing the understanding of human trafficking at the national level, which “various institutional and cultural shifts must follow…”. The participants overwhelmingly supported a range of ideas that relied on factors outside themselves to introduce the topic of human trafficking to their future students. 

The future ideas for shared governance included mandating information about human trafficking into criminal justice courses and not mandating information but making the information available to all criminal justice instructors. Some participants saw adjusting the course descriptions as a way for the administration to guide instructors into teaching more on the topic without mandating, per se. Other participants believed an advisory board, or a campus wide campaign were constructive ways to bring about change and help increase the amount of human trafficking content in their classrooms.

The most popular idea for shared governance was supported by half of the participants in this study. The most favored form of shared governance was having organized discussions with other faculty members. In this approach, participants supported hearing feedback from other instructors on what areas should be broadened within the curriculum. To facilitate these meetings, some suggested including those who had specialties in specific fields, and others supported having emails exchanged amongst instructors in lieu of having organized face-to-face meetings. 

Whether they supported faculty meetings, advisory boards, campus wide campaigns, or adjusting the course descriptions, it was clear that the participants believed the best way to increase the amount of human trafficking being discussed in their classrooms was through some form of shared governance.

Discussion

In this section, the significant findings identified in the study are discussed considering the research questions. As noted previously, this study had two research questions. Those questions were:

RQ1: How do criminal justice faculty present human trafficking in their classrooms? 

RQ2: How do criminal justice faculty decide if human trafficking is relevant for their courses or not?

As noted in the literature review, the criminal justice system has increasingly been looking to higher education since 1929 to help better prepare future police officers (Rydberg & Terrill, 2010). This led Polk and Armstrong (2001) to find that by the end of the 20^th century, well over half of officers had some college experience. However, even with increased exposure to higher education, few officers are aware of their own state's human trafficking laws (Wagner, 2012), and less than 20% received training after college (Mapp et al., 2016). By turning to higher education, it was noted that criminal justice students held many misperceptions about sex trafficking (Browder, 2018), with a majority identifying the media as their source for information about human trafficking (Haroldson, 2014). Unfortunately, “human trafficking is a problem, most people do not recognize that it is happening in their own communities” (Pfeffer, 2018, p. 7). In this study, the ways that criminal justice instructors present the topic of human trafficking in their classrooms and how they decide if it is relevant for their courses was explored.

Defining Human Trafficking 

An understanding of human trafficking should start with an ability or inability to accurately define the crime itself. Since the year 2000, the international community has used the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children to define human trafficking. In the same year, the U.S. defined human trafficking in a similar way with its own legislation, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. None of the participants in this study mentioned either of these laws when defining or discussing human trafficking. 

Without referencing any international, national, or even state level definitions of human trafficking, the participants did provide their own definitions. A majority of the participants in this study identified vulnerability as a defining factor of human trafficking: “A vulnerability can be defined as an unmet need” (Sadler, 2019, p. 5). While an “unmet need” qualifies homelessness, runaways, sexually abused kids, and more as “vulnerable,” the participants had a difficult time pinning down specifics when discussing vulnerability. One participants' definition suggested that traffickers “capitalize on the unwitting and the often weaker, the financially disadvantaged in an effort to force them into industries principally sex, but other industries as well, and they utilize them in order to profit.”

Another instructor stated that the “most vulnerable in our population? It is usually young kids or young children, youth.” While identifying youth as a vulnerable group, the instructor did not elaborate on the reasons why a youth is at a greater risk or what factors could exacerbate the risk. Interestingly, the same instructor insisted that there was no clear definition of human trafficking multiple times, although the literature shows that there is both an international and national definition that have been in place for 20 years. This same instructor also said: “Yeah. I think I know what is necessary to know as an academic who touches base on it.

The instructors' definitions of human trafficking intersected at times with the legal definitions, but mostly meandered along subjective interpretations of information from a multitude of sources.

Source of Information

The participants cited a wide range of sources for where they got their information about human trafficking. This list of sources included magazines, scholarly articles, internet searches, documentaries, and even family members who were professionals in the anti-human trafficking field. However, the main sources of information were textbooks and the news. Several of the participants complained about the small amount of content regarding human trafficking within their textbooks. One instructor described the textbooks as being their sole source of information on the topic: 

My understanding of it, I think, is that it has been developed from the textbooks, because it's not an area that I've researched intensively. In the beginning, most human trafficking that I learned about, my understanding was related to sex trafficking. That was the majority of any reference in textbooks, and it usually was an afterthought, that's how I would describe it.

The news and other forms of media that included Hollywood movies and documentaries was a significant source of information for the participants in this study. This is not much different than their students, as the literature review detailed that two-thirds of criminal justice students listed the media as a source for human trafficking information (Haroldson, 2014).

Scope

Only two of the participants in this study stated that human trafficking was a global and domestic problem. The remaining participants were divided on whether the issue was exclusively domestic or international. The literature review showed that there are 35 million people who are trafficked around the world every year (Bales, 2016), with as many as 60,000 being trafficked in the U.S. (Ferrell et al., 2010). This shows that, within their classrooms, there is an inability or an unwillingness among the participants to acknowledge the ubiquitous nature of human trafficking; however, the participants agreed that more coverage on the topic should be included in the overall program curriculum. 

Pedagogy

While the participants of this study used a range of pedagogical approaches in their classrooms that included open discussions, usage of media, and textbooks, there was no noticeable difference that indicated that these pedagogical choices affected the inclusion of human trafficking into the curriculum. Instructor pedagogy regarding human trafficking in this study includes teaching style and academic inclusion, or exclusion of human trafficking from the curriculum. A pedagogical approach is significant to this study because colleges and universities have the potential to be the most influential institutions in the world (Hendrickson et al., 2013). 

Teaching Style

In this study, all of the participants had unique teaching styles that differed from one another. While some relied on lectures and PowerPoints more than class participation, others made discussions and engagement a focal point of the classroom experience. None of the participants addressed any intentionality of including human trafficking into their course regardless of teaching style. That being said, the participants who did use class discussions relied on the students to mention the subject matter if it was going to be introduced. At the same time, the participants who favored PowerPoints, lectures, and textbooks as part of their teaching style did not introduce human trafficking to a significant degree themselves, either. One of the instructors' explanations for this was that: “You have to remember that I think the way and what we teach at community colleges is different than at the university. What I mean by that is that we are a teaching institution so therefore we are often constrained by the sheer number and quantity of things that we do.”

Importance of Inclusion

Frost (2010), Frickenauer and Lin (2006), and Wilson et al. (2006) showed that properly sharing information about human trafficking with individuals makes them better able to understand and identify the crime. In this study, all of the participants unanimously agreed that criminal justice students should be exposed to some level of human trafficking within the curriculum. Most of the participants believed that human trafficking information could be shared within existing courses. Of all the courses in the criminal justice division, a majority of the participants identified the introduction to criminal justice course as the best place to include content about human trafficking.

The participants also agreed that by the time students graduate, they should be able to define human trafficking and have sufficient knowledge about the topic. The participants stated that students should be able to “know what it is, explain it,” that it “exists, how to notice,” “recognize and understand,” and “define and know it is happening.” However, Haroldson (2014) and Browder (2018) showed that many criminal justice students are not able to accurately define human trafficking and do not have a firm understanding of the topic. A lack of inclusion is part of the reason for the gap between what the participants stated students should know, and what students did know.

Afterthought

Zhilina (2012) showed that across the country, there is a dearth of criminal justice courses that include information about human trafficking. The participants in this study align with Zhilina's (2012) findings, because while they all stated that they had a desire to have students attain a certain level of understanding on the topic, none of the participants exerted a significant amount of effort to ensure the topic was included in their courses. This includes the participants who taught introduction to criminal justice on a regular basis, which was identified as the primary course where the topic should be taught. Whether the participants used textbooks or lectures to engage their students or knew the definition of human trafficking versus believing there was no definition, all of the participants' pedagogical approaches to human trafficking amounted to it being an afterthought. The instructor who showed his students the movie Taken only did so when time permitted. The participants who touched on human trafficking in their textbooks were aware that it was only briefly covered, and in some cases, on as little as one page. There were no identified variables that signaled an increased amount of human trafficking within courses amongst participants in this study. 

Textbooks

There was no preference among participants in this study regarding textbooks. Half of the participants used textbooks in their courses and the other half either did not use textbooks or reduced their usage in the classroom. All the participants who used textbooks as the only source of human trafficking information in their classrooms mentioned reviewing texts before assigning them to the course. This means that before the course started, all of the participants were aware of how much or how little information on human trafficking would be covered in their course. This finding may help explain why previous studies have found criminal justice students' sources for information on human trafficking is news and media (Haroldson, 2014), instead of their professors or course textbooks.

First Responders

A majority of the participants agreed that first responders are more likely to interact with human trafficking victims than the average citizen. The participants identifying this intersection between criminal justice and human trafficking is significant given the findings in the literature review that show that the majority of criminal justice students desire to work in law enforcement (Courtwright & Mackey, 2004; Walters & Kremser, 2016). The participants in this study overwhelmingly understood that law enforcement officers would interact with human trafficking victims at higher rates and still did not offer a significant amount of information about human trafficking in their classrooms, by their own estimations. 

All the participants seemed to be aware that many of their students desired to work in law enforcement post-graduation, as one instructor stated when asked about her classroom that “70-75% want to go into law enforcement,” and “if we do not introduce them, they are barely going to get that at academy.” The same instructor spoke about first responders and human trafficking by saying: “It would be difficult for them to have that type of career without having interaction with someone.” This aligns with Farrell and Reichert's (2017) findings that since the passing of the William Wilberforce Act of 2008, there has been an increasing call on all levels of the U.S. criminal justice system to respond. 

Summary

The findings of this study show that, regardless of the participants' understanding or knowledge of human trafficking, they did not share a significant amount of human trafficking information with their students. While all the participants in this study agreed that criminal justice students should know how to define and understand human trafficking by the time they graduate, the participants themselves had difficulty defining human trafficking. The participants' main sources for information on human trafficking came from the news and the textbooks they used in their courses. Only half of the participants solely relied on textbooks to share information about the criminal justice system including human trafficking with their students. Those who used textbooks reviewed them before assigning them to their course and were aware of the nonexistent to little amount of information about human trafficking within the text. Many of the participants were also aware that a significant amount of their students desired to work in law enforcement upon graduation, while also being aware that first responders are more likely to engage human trafficking victims more than the average citizen. Even with this knowledge, the participants still chose not to include a sufficient amount of human trafficking information in their courses.

Implications for Practice

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the possible connection between how criminal justice faculty talk about human trafficking, how much they share their knowledge with students, how they share it, and students' understanding of the topic. Related to the findings, there are several implications for administrators in higher education as well as instructors. While this study focused on six instructors, the implications will serve the entire criminal justice division at the case-study site as well as at other colleges and universities.

Shared Governance

Most of the participants agreed that the best way to ensure that a sufficient amount of human trafficking information was included in their future courses was to use shared governance. With that in mind, I have two recommendations for using shared governance.

First, have the administration sit down with faculty members in the criminal justice division to adjust the course description for the intro to criminal justice course, so that it reflects the inclusion of human trafficking. This is a required course and will ensure that all students pass through at least one course that offers a description for what must be taught about human trafficking. This will also address an issue identified in the literature of not enough courses mentioning human trafficking in the course description for criminal justice courses (Zhilina, 2012). 

This change will need to be accompanied by adjusting the default topical outline that is given to each instructor at the start of a new semester. The topical outline essentially works as a checklist for topics that must be addressed in the course throughout the semester. These changes are small but will allow students to receive information about human trafficking from an instructor in an academic institution. This is significantly better than where students are currently getting their information on the topic – the news and the media (Haroldson, 2014).

An additional effort that administration and faculty could work on together to help increase the probability that the introduction to criminal justice course includes information about human trafficking would be to select a required text that needs to be used by all participants teaching the course. This would help address the issue of instructors selecting and using textbooks that they are aware do not include a significant amount of information on human trafficking. 

Second, the department chair should identify a faculty member within the institution or possibly an expert from outside the college who has sufficient expertise in human trafficking, so that they can provide annual updates on human trafficking laws, trends, and current events to all criminal justice faculty members during divisional meetings. This will allow faculty to be updated with relevant information that they can decide how and if they would like to include in their courses. This would also provide a network that the instructors could reach out to for class materials and local information that could be shared with the students.

Faculty Development

In this study, the findings showed that regardless of participants' understanding and knowledge on the topic, their inclusion of human trafficking into their courses was not affected. However, there is still an issue with some of the participants not being able to define human trafficking accurately. This is significant, because Krimmel and Tartaro (1999) found that as many as 45% of criminal justice students desired a job in law enforcement, and Courtwright and Mackey (2004) found that law enforcement was the most sought-after job of those seeking degrees in criminal justice. Additionally, The President's Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons 2014 detailed a strategic plan to combat human trafficking that depends on local law enforcement as key figures in the fight against human trafficking. I have the following recommendations to help instructors in the criminal justice division understand human trafficking and be better able to share that information with their students who have an increased likelihood of being involved in law enforcement at some point after graduation.

First, provide faculty members with a list of academic journals that focus on human trafficking. This will provide an easy alternative for those instructors who only use textbooks, but desire to share supplemental material on the topic that is as easily accessible as a textbook. 

Second, the administration will need to provide online training for instructors and recommend that they complete it on an annual basis. Online human trafficking training courses have been found to change the student's knowledge, understanding, and their behavior regarding human trafficking (Waston et al., 2016). This positive effect was achieved with just one online course. Online education allows the instructors a flexible, accessible, and measured opportunity to learn about human trafficking beyond the textbooks and media misrepresentations.

Third, the administration needs to mandate divisional meetings every semester. This will give faculty an opportunity to discuss divisional issues and ideas for including different teaching approaches, materials, and books into various criminal justice courses. This will provide a space for any of the instructors to mention the need or desire to introduce human trafficking into another course to their peers beyond the intro to criminal justice course.

Fourth, provide faculty with the opportunity to work with local experts on human trafficking and the Student Life division at the college. This would be a joint effort between the criminal justice division and the student life division to construct an annual awareness event that would be a conference or event that students could attend for free. Other groups and divisions that could offer insight and reliable information could also be included in this effort. Some examples may include local FBI personnel who work human trafficking cases, and other divisions in the school that intersect with human trafficking, including sociology and humanities, to name a few. The collaborative effort would allow instructors to learn from local experts and share what they know with students as well. This would provide students with an opportunity to learn about human trafficking in an academic setting without affecting what instructors do in their classrooms.

Implications for Future Research

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the possible connection between how criminal justice faculty talk about human trafficking, how much they share their knowledge with students, how they share it, and students' understanding of the topic. There has been a significant amount of research on criminal justice students' knowledge about human trafficking (Haroldson, 2014; Jones, 2012; Leteroneau, 2007; Zubairie, 2016) but none on college instructors' levels of knowledge on the topic or approaches to teaching on the topic in the classroom. 

That being said, a comparison study across multiple types of institutions might help to identify whether there has been an environmental influence that affected the instructors' ability and/or willingness to understand and teach about human trafficking to a sufficient degree. Additionally, using a quantitative methodology could help provide data that would be more descriptive and allow for more institutions to be involved in creating a greater breadth of study, while still allowing for predictable inputs to be measured. 

Additionally, if I were conducting this research again, I would gather information from the students in the instructors' classes as well. Asking a series of open-ended questions allowed me to better understand the instructor's justification for including or excluding human trafficking from their classes, and how they share that information with their students. However, it is unclear how effective these approaches were with different classes. Having the students share their knowledge would help to further illuminate the effectiveness of transmitting information on human trafficking in a classroom setting.

It would also be helpful to analyze the materials that the instructors are using to share information about human trafficking with their students. This could be done with a content analysis that reviewed all texts, articles, and other literature while also reviewing any media that is intended to help students learn about human trafficking. This would give deeper insight into the issues with textbook content and possibly expose more issues of misunderstanding.

Another approach could include a single in-class observation of instructors sharing information and discussing human trafficking with students, which would be especially insightful into understanding how criminal justice faculty present human trafficking in their classrooms. This could be attained by contacting instructors at the beginning of the semester and asking what days they will be including the topic in their classes, and if the researcher could be present to view and take notes as a nonparticipant.

Finally, an ethnographic study could have the researcher sit in multiple classes with several instructors throughout the year to gather instances when human trafficking is presented and discussed in the classroom. This takes the class observation to the next level by covering when students bring up the topic without instructors initiating discussions first. This would also allow for the potential of new themes to be discovered that this present study was not able to detect due to limited time with the participants.

Limitations of Study

It is important that the researcher acknowledges that there were influences or conditions that could not be controlled, and these naturally influenced the results of the research. The limitations identified involved the methodology and data collection. Participants were selected based on three predetermined criteria: The instructor must have been a) employed at the college; b) employed during the Fall semester; c) and worked in the criminal justice division. A brief email was sent to all the instructors meeting the criteria. Self-selection was a limiting factor, as the research had to proceed with a convenience sample. Despite efforts to have all available participants participate, the researcher was only able to secure six interviews. If there were more time and resources, then the researcher could have waited to see how many more would have participated.

Another limiting factor in this research was the data collection method. It would have been ideal to have the interviews in-person (Creswell, 2012), but due to logistics and availability, all the interviews were conducted through Zoom meetings online. This method was approved by the Governors State University Institutional Review Board, but important interpersonal observations and information that would have been contextually significant were naturally lost (Creswell, 2012). It is not known to what extent these experiences may have represented a limitation in this study. 

Conclusion

Just as criminal justice divisions within colleges and universities around the country ensure that students are exposed to criminological theory, probation, parole, the courts, and patrol, there should be a more conscious effort to include human trafficking into the curriculum as well. Students will likely have problems understanding human trafficking without guidance from their instructors. Pfeffer (2018) explained that defining human trafficking is difficult. 

Assuming that students will learn about human trafficking from other reliable sources outside of the classroom has been shown to be an unwise choice. Students and police officers are both groups that are generally unable to properly define human trafficking or identify it. If they were taught sufficiently, as a group that aspires to work in law enforcement at higher rates than other divisions, criminal justice students could put their knowledge of human trafficking to work immediately upon being hired at a department. 

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the possible connection between how criminal justice faculty talk about human trafficking, how much they share their knowledge with students, how they share it, and students' understanding of the topic. Advancing shared governance in some capacity has the potential to increase the amount of human trafficking information that is shared in criminal justice classrooms. Most notable in this study was that it did not matter if participants had a lot or a little knowledge of human trafficking, as they still shared an insufficient amount of information to have students be able to define, identify, and understand the topic. Those who mandated texts for their courses compared to participants who did not rely on texts showed a difference in the way they introduced the topic to students, but both groups shared a small amount. This mimics the availability of information being provided by instructors around the country, as Zhilina (2012) found that there are only a few options for criminal justice students to learn about human trafficking within academia.

As the world continues to change, it is inevitable that colleges and universities will change as well. With more laws being passed since 2000, human trafficking is becoming increasingly relevant and important in the criminal justice system. The findings from this study suggest that to prepare students for this shift, there should be a larger inclusion of human trafficking into the criminal justice curriculum and instructors would benefit from having resources made available to them to help them increase their own knowledge while using a shared governance approach to put forward new ideas on how to better share information with students.

 If the implications for practice that were detailed in this study are implemented, there will be enhancements to the instructors' understanding of human trafficking, increased information sharing with students, and increased student understanding of human trafficking. This will benefit the criminal justice division and the entire country.

Appendix A: Initial email to participate

Subject: How Do Criminal Justice Faculty Talk About Human Trafficking?

Date

Dear (Title Last Name), 

My name is David Deeds, and I am a doctoral candidate in the Interdisciplinary Leadership program at Governors State University. I am completing my capstone project under the guidance of Dr. Matthew Cooney, assistant professor of education. I am asking for your participation in my capstone research study that will explore how criminal justice faculty talk about human trafficking. 

There is a problem within higher education that 1) aspiring law enforcement officers are not required/offered a significant education on human trafficking; and 2) the university and college criminal justice students who aspire to become law enforcement officers are unable to correctly define or identify human trafficking. As a faculty member teaching in a criminal justice division, you can provide valuable insight as to why human trafficking is not a focal point. This is an exploratory study, and you are not required to have any understanding about human trafficking to participate. 

The benefit of this research is that it will partially fill the gap in understanding how students are misinformed about human trafficking. There are no direct benefits of the study for participants (e.g., raffle prizes). If you agree to take part in this research study, you will be asked to participate in a one-on-one interview with myself that should take about 30 minutes to complete. 

Your participation is completely voluntary. You are free to withdraw at any time. You may decide to skip questions or discontinue participation at any time without penalty. Deciding to participate or not participate will not affect you, your position, or your relationship with Governors State University and your institution. 

Please note that all of your responses will be kept completely confidential. All data will be stored on a secure server. All resulting data will only be reported in the aggregate; no names or institutions will be listed. Because the interview questions will be administered in person, an audio recorder will be used to allow for transcription at a later date for research purposes only. The risk of participating is no greater than experienced in everyday life. 

Please note the precautions taken in the previous confidentiality protection section.

If you have any questions or concerns about the research or participation in the research, please feel to contact me at (630) 631-8490 or [email protected]. My advisor for this research study is Dr. Matthew Cooney and he can be reached at (708)-534-8049 or [email protected]. You may also contact the Chair, Institutional Review Board at (708)-235-7690 or [email protected], if you have any questions about your rights as a participant in this research.

Thank you for considering participating in my capstone research study.

 

Appendix B: Reminder email to participate

Subject: How Do Criminal Justice Faculty Talk About Human Trafficking?

Date

Dear (Title/Last name), 

I hope this email finds you well. Recently, I sent an email invitation to participate in my capstone study about the level of knowledge and understanding that criminal justice faculty have about human trafficking. There is a problem within higher education that uninforms or misinforms criminal justice students and has them unable to correctly define or identify human trafficking. As a faculty member teaching in a criminal justice division, you can provide valuable insight as to why human trafficking is not a focal point.

I hope that you consider participating in my study. 

Thank you,

David Deeds

Ed.D. Candidate, Interdisciplinary Leadership

Department of Education

Governors State University

 

Appendix C: Interview Questions

1. What is your level of understanding about human trafficking on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being a lot of knowledge and 1 being none?

2. To your knowledge, what is the current prevalence of human trafficking in the U.S. and in the world?

3. Do you discuss human trafficking when you are teaching criminal justice?

4. Do you believe human trafficking is a necessary topic to include in criminal justice courses?

5. How informed should police officers be about human trafficking?

6. When you select course materials (ex. articles, texts), do you ensure human trafficking is included for any of your criminal justice courses?

7. How would you describe what makes someone a human trafficking victim?

8. Where have you learned what you know about human trafficking?

9. Do you believe that first responders including police officers have a higher probability of interacting with human trafficking victims than those who are not first responders?

10. If you were provided with course materials that made it easier to incorporate human trafficking into your courses, would you use them?

11. How would you describe human trafficking?

 

Appendix D: Copy of CITI Certificate

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