This is the first comprehensive text to critically analyze the current research and best practices for working with children, adolescents, and adults involved in sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation (CSE). With a unique, research-based focus on practice, the book synthesizes the key areas related to working with victims of sex trafficking/ CSE including prevention, identification, practice techniques, and program design as well as suggested interagency, criminal justice, and legislative responses. Best practices are examined through an intersectional, trauma-informed lens that adheres to principles of cultural competency. Highlights include: Integrates a trauma informed lens in practice, program design, and interagency responses. Uses an intersectional approach to examine identity-based oppression such as race, class, sex, LGBTQ identities, age, immigrant status, and intellectual disabilities. Highlights the importance of cultural competency in practice and program design, prevention and outreach efforts, and interagency and criminal justice system responses. Reviews the different types of sex trafficking and CSE, the physiological and psychological effects, various risk factors, and the distinct needs of survivors to encourage practitioners to tailor interventions to the specific needs of each client. Examines the role of social workers and practitioners in interagency, legislative, and criminal justice responses to sex trafficking. Takes a broad societal perspective by examining the role of macro-level risk factors facilitating sex trafficking victimization. The book analyzes the commonly reported indicators of sex trafficking/CSE, how to conduct a screening with potential victims, and direct practice techniques with various populations including evidence-based trauma treatments. Other chapters guide the reader in implementing trauma-informed programming in a variety of organizational settings, advocating for sex trafficking and CSE survivors within the criminal justice system, and implementing effective prevention and outreach programs in schools and community organizations. Intended as a text for upper division courses on sex or human trafficking, interventions with women, trauma interventions, violence against women, or gender and crime taught in social work, psychology, counseling, and criminal justice, this book is also an ideal resource for practitioners working with victims of sex trafficking and CSE in a variety of settings including child protective services, the criminal justice system, healthcare, schools, and more.

Feminist Advocacy: Gendered Organizations in Community-based Responses to Domestic Violence examines victim advocacy through a gendered organizations perspective. This monograph draws from in-depth interviews with twenty-six domestic violence victim advocates to examine their experiences with gendered policies and practices in the justice system, child protective services, and shelters. Andrea J. Nichols explores justice system interventions related to pro-arrest, dual arrest, no-drop prosecution, protective orders, and the actions of police and judges. In addition, she examines policies and practices related to child protective services that negatively affect battered women, such as charges for failure to protect and lost custody. Nichols also explores the most contentiously debated shelter policies, including curfew, confidentiality, substance abuse, entrance requirements, admitting adolescent boys, and mandatory classes. Drawing from advocates' narratives of their experiences, Feminist Advocacy bears significant implications for policy and practice in community-based responses to domestic violence. This book will prove especially valuable to anyone who studies or works in the fields of social work, human services, criminal justice, or criminology, including advocates, practitioners, students, academic researchers, and those interested in intimate partner violence.

Feminist Advocacy: Gendered Organizations in Community-based Responses to Domestic Violence examines victim advocacy through a gendered organizations perspective. This monograph draws from in-depth interviews with twenty-six domestic violence victim advocates to examine their experiences with gendered policies and practices in the justice system, child protective services, and shelters. Andrea J. Nichols explores justice system interventions related to pro-arrest, dual arrest, no-drop prosecution, protective orders, and the actions of police and judges. In addition, she examines policies and practices related to child protective services that negatively affect battered women, such as charges for failure to protect and lost custody. Nichols also explores the most contentiously debated shelter policies, including curfew, confidentiality, substance abuse, entrance requirements, admitting adolescent boys, and mandatory classes. Drawing from advocates' narratives of their experiences, Feminist Advocacy bears significant implications for policy and practice in community-based responses to domestic violence. This book will prove especially valuable to anyone who studies or works in the fields of social work, human services, criminal justice, or criminology, including advocates, practitioners, students, academic researchers, and those interested in intimate partner violence.

Sex Trafficking in the United States is a unique exploration of the underlying dynamics of sex trafficking. This comprehensive volume examines the common risk factors for those who become victims, and the barriers they face when they try to leave. It also looks at how and why sex traffickers enter the industry. A chapter on buyers presents what we know about their motivations, the prevalence of bought sex, and criminal justice policies that target them. Sex Trafficking in the United States describes how the justice system, activists, and individuals can engage in advocating for victims of sex trafficking. It also offers recommendations for practice and policy and suggestions for cultural change. Andrea J. Nichols approaches sex-trafficking-related theories, research, policies, and practice from neoliberal, abolitionist, feminist, criminological, and sociological perspectives. She confronts competing views of the relationship between pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking, as well as the contribution of weak social institutions and safety nets to the spread of sex trafficking. She also explores the link between identity-based oppression, societal marginalization, and the risk of victimization. She clearly accounts for the role of race, ethnicity, immigrant status, LGBTQ identities, age, sex, and intellectual disability in heightening the risk of trafficking and how social services and the criminal justice and healthcare systems can best respond. This textbook is essential for understanding the mechanics of a pervasive industry and curbing its spread among at-risk populations. Please visit our supplemental materials page (https://cup.columbia.edu/extras/supplement/sex-trafficking-united-states) to find teaching aids, including PowerPoints, access to a test bank, and a sample syllabus.