Home> Archive> 2020> Volume 10 Number 2 ( May. 2020)
IJSSH 2020 Vol.10(2): 57-61 ISSN: 2010-3646
doi: 10.18178/ijssh.2020.V10.1014

The Use of Spatial Statistics to Control Human and Sex Trafficking

Jose Javier Lopez and Sherrise Truesdale-Moore

Abstract—Sex trafficking is an issue that has received considerable attention during the past fifteen years. An understanding of this crime’s geographic distribution provides social services agencies a better idea of which areas are more vulnerable to the problem due to the presence of facilitators and enablers of this exploitative practice. In order to develop a thorough understanding of this crime’s geographic patterns, social scientists need basic knowledge of spatial statistics. This type of statistical analysis is a product of the quantitative revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s. With the advent of user-friendly information systems technologies, numerous government agencies and non-governmental social services groups have initiated the inclusion of this area of knowledge in their fight against human trafficking. This paper provides examples of the use of spatial statistics as an analytical and crime-solving resource for the detection of sex trafficking activities in some areas of the United States. Particular attention is given to the role geographic information systems (GIS) and crime reports play in the development of inferential spatial statistical analyses. The case studies of sex trafficking in the American states of Virginia and Minnesota are included in this article.

Index Terms—Geographic information systems, sex trafficking, spatial statistics.

Jose Javier Lopez is with the Department of Geography, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN 56001 USA (e-mail: jose.lopez@mnsu.edu).
Sherrise Truesdale-Moore is with the Department of Sociology and Corrections, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN 56001 USA (e-mail: sherrise.truesdale@mnsu.edu).

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Cite: Jose Javier Lopez and Sherrise Truesdale-Moore, "The Use of Spatial Statistics to Control Human and Sex Trafficking," International Journal of Social Science and Humanity vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 57-61, 2020.

Copyright © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).
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