The internet and Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: Trends in numbers of victims, pimps, and social networking sites

Incidents of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST) have become more common to domestic law enforcement agencies over the past several years. Many previously believed it to be a foreign epidemic but are now seeing the prevalence of such schemes here in the United States. Social learning theory and routine activities theory both suggest causations of DMST victimization. With the creation of an anonymous law enforcement agency's DMST task force, more attention has been focused on DMST and the perpetrators' use of the Internet to recruit and advertise victims. This study utilized a quantitative research design and focused on the relationship between the number of victims, perpetrators, and social networking websites over time. Data was collected directly from an anonymous law enforcement agency's investigative files, and linear regression was used to analyze the secondary, nominal data. To date, this is the only study of its kind that utilizes raw secondary data directly from the anonymous law enforcement agency's investigative database. The study identified a significant increase in DMST victims and an insignificant increase in DMST perpetrators over time. An insignificant increase in the number of social networking websites over time was also observed. The study also revealed insignificant positive relationships between the number of DMST victims and the number of social networking websites and the number of DMST perpetrators and the number of social networking websites.