Trafficked & Arrested - 2023 Report

Understanding the Criminalization of Human Trafficking Survivors

After doing this work for the past six years, we have learned a lot about the criminalization of victims and survivors. This report highlights what we’ve learned over the past six years. We hope you take the time to read it and share it with others in your network.

Most people assume that when law enforcement encounters a victim of human trafficking, they arrest the perpetrator and provide aid to the victim. Unfortunately, victims are often treated as criminals and arrested for crimes related to their exploitation. In fact, a national survey of survivors found that over 90% of those surveyed had been arrested, and over 50% were arrested at least once as a minor. Over 39% of respondents reported being arrested four times or more, and over 40% reported being arrested over nine times or more.

Our Experience Serving Criminalized Survivors of Human Trafficking

This data is consistent with what we see at Free to Thrive. Among the 169 human trafficking survivor clients we served, 150 (88.8%) were previously arrested, charged, and/or convicted of a crime. An analysis of the California Department of Justice (DOJ) criminal backgrounds for 55 of our vacatur clients reveals they were arrested for 1,241 individual offenses, at an average of 22.6 offenses per client. When we interview our clients about their backgrounds, the vast majority had no involvement with the criminal legal system prior to their exploitation. The purpose of this report is to share what we’ve learned about the criminalization of victims from this work over the past six years.