Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is one of the fastest-growing crimes that law enforcement professionals must understand in order to deal with it properly. Unfortunately, many officers on the streets have not been trained adequately to recognize a trafficking situation when they encounter it. 

This course provides insights that can help officers be better able to combat this growing menace, and more importantly, save an innocent victim! 

When most people hear the phrase “human trafficking,” they first think of a load of illegal immigrants in the back of an 18-wheeler being smuggled across the border. Human trafficking doesn’t even have to involve any movement whatsoever.  

Human trafficking is someone controlling another person using force, fraud, or coercion to exploit the victim into forced labor or sexual exploitation. Victims of human trafficking include not only men and women lured into forced labor by the promise of a better life in the United States, but also boys and girls who were born and raised in United States. 

This course is comprehensive. Some of the topics discussed include how to: 

• Define human trafficking
• Identify and define the two (2) types of human trafficking
• Identify the methods of force, fraud, and coercion used by traffickers
• Identify the possible signs of labor trafficking
• Identify the possible signs of sex trafficking
• Identify websites used to promote commercial sex acts
• Identify methods used by traffickers to recruit victims
• Begin a trafficking investigation
• Understand the difficulties in handling trafficking victims
• Locate victims of trafficking
• Collect evidence and conduct interviews
• Move from traffic stop to investigation
• Identify the locations where human trafficking is likely to occur    
• Identify the recruiting techniques used by pimps
• Identify commonly used prostitution terms and “the game”
• Understand social media as it relates to human trafficking

After completing this course, you may look back on one of your calls for service or traffic stops and realize that you may have had an opportunity to rescue a victim.