Lawmakers want DOJ to create national human trafficking database

House lawmakers introduced legislation on Tuesday that would create a public-facing federal platform to share data from law enforcement agencies about the prevalence of human trafficking across the U.S.

Within 18 months of the bill’s enactment, the Department of Justice would be required to launch a database on its website that includes more granular information on human trafficking, including county-by-county data and a list of anti-trafficking organizations in each locality. The platform would also have to include the total number of trafficking prosecutions by state.

The legislation — sponsored by Reps. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., Yadira Caraveo, D-Colo., and Hank Johnson, D-Ga. — would award grants to state law enforcement agencies to incentivize the reporting of more detailed human trafficking data to the DOJ's Office for Victims of Crime. 

Officials who receive grants would be required to submit state and county data on cases of labor trafficking and sex trafficking, including aggregated and anonymized data from the National Human Trafficking Hotline and anti-trafficking organizations operating on the state level. 

The Hotline reported that there were 9,619 cases of trafficking across U.S. states and territories in 2023 that involved 16,999 victims. The FBI reported in July that data collected by its Uniform Crime Reporting Program identified over 8,700 reported incidents of human trafficking from 2013 to 2022.

The bill would also require law enforcement agencies to share data on “the presence and prevalence of criminal activity known to be correlated with human trafficking,” such as prostitution, gang-related violence and sexual assault.

“The establishment of a human trafficking database will provide law enforcement with the tools needed to track movements, determine patterns that could expedite victim recovery, to more quickly catch perpetrators and spotlight any challenges with prosecutions,” Hageman said in a statement.

The bill is a companion to legislation introduced in June by Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., although there are slight differences between the two proposals. 

The House bill would establish the database on the DOJ's website, while the Senate legislation would create it on the FBI’s platform. 

The Senate provision would also require participating law enforcement agencies to create a “human trafficking risk assessment” that calculates a score for each county in their state. This assessment would also be published on the newly created website.

The FBI relies on state and local law enforcement to provide detailed crime statistics, although not all agencies are complying. 

A June 2023 article from the Marshall Project noted that reporting participation dropped after the FBI replaced its old collection system in 2021. The report found that data from 6,000 law enforcement agencies was not included in the FBI’s 2022 compilation of national crime data.