Small and rural police chief perspectives on human trafficking in Pennsylvania

Abstract

PurposeResearch on human trafficking largely focuses on large, urban areas, yet it is a problem in small, rural areas. Police in these areas must have the training to identify human trafficking and resources to combat the issue – both of which may be lacking in small, rural areas. The purpose of this project is to explore police chiefs' perspectives on human trafficking in small, rural areas.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-methods approach was used to assess Pennsylvania police chiefs' understanding of human trafficking and their perspective of the extent of the problem in their area. First, 349 police chiefs completed an online survey during the summer of 2020. Follow-up in-depth interviews were conducted with 52 police chiefs.FindingsMost chiefs believed human trafficking is a problem in Pennsylvania (81%) or in their local area (12%). Logistic regression analysis indicated chief experience, department budget and the number of employees affect small and rural police chief perceptions of human trafficking. Qualitative analyses identified three themes of police chief perceptions of human trafficking: conflation with prostitution, definitional debates and competing beliefs about prevalence. Training on identifying human trafficking would benefit small and rural police departments. Chiefs recommended outside assistance investigating human trafficking cases and other state-level resources would be helpful.Originality/valueScant research exists on small and rural police departments in the United States, especially in regards to human trafficking. This study contributes to the literature by addressing this gap with a mixed-methods approach.

Policing the pandemic in rural America: experiences from Pennsylvania

“…Similar struggles were experienced by police chiefs who oversaw departments across Pennsylvania (Gibbs, 2021). Prior to the pandemic, police chiefs expressed concerns about reliance on part-time staffing, salaries, technological capabilities, and mental health resources (Gibbs, 2021). Specific to the pandemic, 88% of chiefs stated that their departments were impacted across multiple aspects of policing (e.g.…”

“…Supplemental items related to department characteristics that might be beyond the typical awareness of routine officers were included in the survey created for chiefs. Items about department characteristics were drawn from Gibbs (2021) that captured chiefs’ agreement with their department staffing adequacy, morale, and salary sufficiency for officer retention. Items were constructed to capture variation in agreement about statements relevant to experiences throughout the coronavirus pandemic (e.g.…”

“…2,501–5,000 residents), and those with more sworn officers on staff had departments with a pandemic-specific policy to aid in their police response. Consistently, rural police departments experienced a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) due to limited financial capabilities (Gibbs, 2021; Helfers and Nhan, 2022; Mrozla, 2022). Historically, rural law enforcement and social services agencies have been underfunded, understaffed, and often neglected (Hansen and Lory, 2020), and how these conditions interacted with the pandemic is worthy of investigation.…”