TY - JOUR
T1 - Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and the Emergence of Safe Harbor Legislation
T2 - Implications for Policy and Practice
AU - Shields, Ryan T.
AU - Letourneau, Elizabeth J.
N1 - Funding Information:
As noted, 18 states have enacted various components of Safe Harbor laws. To encourage more complete adoption and implementation of Safe Harbor policies, there is a federal effort to standardize states’ responses to CSEC. The Stop Exploitation through Trafficking Act of 2013, currently referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, would require all states to enact Safe Harbor legislation within 3 years following enactment of the Act []. States that fail to comply would risk losing a percentage of their Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funds. If the Act passes as currently written, states would be required to develop and implement procedures that ensure youth involved in prostitution would be treated as victims, discourage prosecution of sexually exploited youth, and encourage diversion to services. The federal bill provides ample room for states to craft individualized policies but appears to make little effort to link policies to intended results, including individual-level results such as reduced juvenile justice contact and improved mental health and behavior outcomes and systems-level results such as increased detection and punishment of offenders. An evaluation of existing Safe Harbor policy effects, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is ongoing by the authors. Ultimately, results of that evaluation are intended to support the formation of new or revised policies. As is the case with existing Safe Harbor policies, results are likely to vary widely; in the absence of the expectation and funding for rigorous evaluation, it will not be possible to distinguish between policies that achieve the aim of improving the outcomes of exploited youth versus those that make things worse.
Funding Information:
Preparation of this manuscript was supported by the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
PY - 2015/3
Y1 - 2015/3
N2 - Commercial sexual exploitation of children is an enduring social problem that has recently become the focus of numerous legislative initiatives. In particular, recent federal- and state-level legislation have sought to reclassify youth involved in commercial sexual exploitation as victims rather than as offenders. So-called Safe Harbor laws have been developed and centered on decriminalization of “juvenile prostitution.” In addition to or instead of decriminalization, Safe Harbor policies also include diversion, law enforcement training, and increased penalties for adults seeking sexual contact with minors. The purpose of this paper is to review the underlying rationale of Safe Harbor laws, examine specific policy responses currently enacted by the states, and consider the effects of policy variations. Directions for future research and policy are addressed.
AB - Commercial sexual exploitation of children is an enduring social problem that has recently become the focus of numerous legislative initiatives. In particular, recent federal- and state-level legislation have sought to reclassify youth involved in commercial sexual exploitation as victims rather than as offenders. So-called Safe Harbor laws have been developed and centered on decriminalization of “juvenile prostitution.” In addition to or instead of decriminalization, Safe Harbor policies also include diversion, law enforcement training, and increased penalties for adults seeking sexual contact with minors. The purpose of this paper is to review the underlying rationale of Safe Harbor laws, examine specific policy responses currently enacted by the states, and consider the effects of policy variations. Directions for future research and policy are addressed.
KW - Commercial sexual exploitation of children
KW - Juvenile prostitution
KW - Safe harbor
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U2 - 10.1007/s11920-015-0553-5
DO - 10.1007/s11920-015-0553-5
M3 - Review article
C2 - 25652252
AN - SCOPUS:84922470102
SN - 1523-3812
VL - 17
JO - Current psychiatry reports
JF - Current psychiatry reports
IS - 3
ER -