Despite the immense impact of wildlife trafficking, comparisons of the profits, costs, and seriousness of crime consistently rank wildlife trafficking lower relative to human trafficking, drug trafficking and weapons trafficking. Using the published literature and current events, we make the case, when properly viewed within the context of COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases transmitted from wildlife, that wildlife trafficking is the most costly and perhaps the most serious form of trafficking. Our synthesis should raise awareness of the seriousness of wildlife trafficking for humans, thereby inducing strategic policy decisions that boost criminal justice initiatives and resources to combat wildlife trafficking.
Background
There has been little research into whether personality traits increase vulnerability to serious forms of recurring victimisation, such as commercial sexual exploitation of young people.
Aims
To investigate whether impulsivity, emotional dysregulation or high psychopathy scale scores indicative of personality traits increase vulnerability to commercial sexual exploitation.
Methods
Data were used from the longitudinal Pathways to Desistance Study 1170 justice‐involved men who were aged 14–19 at baseline data collection. Ninety‐eight (8%) reported having been commercially sexually exploited during adolescence or young adulthood. We investigated whether personality traits measured at baseline were related to such victimisation.
Results
Results of binomial logistic regression among the young men in this sample indicated that Factor 1 scores on the Psychopathy Checklist‐Youth Version (PCL‐YV), reflecting affective and interpersonal features, are associated with having been commercially sexually exploited, while impulsivity, emotional dysregulation and Factor 2 PCL‐YV, reflecting antisocial activities, were not. Having been a victim of other violence and being a member of a cultural or ethnic minority group were also independently related to being exploited.
Conclusions and implications for practice
Our findings show that individual differences in personality, such as fearless temperament and boredom susceptibility, could differentially disadvantage young people, and put them at greater risk of commercial sexual exploitation. This knowledge could be beneficial to prevention efforts supporting male adolescents at risk for victimisation by commercial sexual exploitation, and to shed new light on the theoretical understanding of vulnerability to it.
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