Adverse Childhood Experiences, Externalizing Behaviors, and Sex Trafficking Risk: Evidence from Large-Scale Screening Data
Sarah Sowell Van Dyk, BA (she/her) & Deniz Cansin Rodoplu, BA (she/her) | September 23 | 11:15 am-12:15 pm EDT
Topic: Direct Service, Legal | Knowledge Level: Intermediate
Systems that vulnerable youth interact with — including child protective services and juvenile justice — have a critical opportunity to intervene and protect youth who have experienced sex trafficking from further harm. Yet current approaches often penalize traumatized youth rather than support them. When youth experience chronic maltreatment, the resulting dysregulation and survival-driven coping frequently surfaces as externalizing behaviors: running away, truancy, and substance use, which in turn may create a context of risk that a trafficker can exploit. This presentation discusses findings from analyzing over 140,000 child sex trafficking risk screenings collected by Allies Against Slavery from juvenile justice and child protective services partners in Texas, examining how adverse childhood experiences shape trafficking vulnerability. The number of adverse childhood experiences was significantly associated with trafficking risk across both systems, and this relationship was largely mediated by externalizing behaviors. Specifically, the number of externalizing behaviors a youth exhibited accounted for 76% of the maltreatment-trafficking association among child welfare youth and 45% among juvenile justice youth. These findings offer empirical evidence that behaviors often perceived as delinquent are maladaptive trauma responses that heighten exploitation exposure. The presenters will conclude with policy and practice implications centered on cross-system collaboration and data integration, including how shared screening infrastructure can help juvenile justice and child welfare agencies identify at-risk youth earlier, coordinate responses, and shift from siloed penalization toward unified, trauma-informed intervention.
Presentation Objectives:
• Explain the behavioral pathways through which childhood maltreatment increases sex trafficking vulnerability among youth involved in child welfare and juvenile justice systems
• Assess how shared screening infrastructure and cross-system data integration can enable child welfare and juvenile justice agencies to shift toward coordinated, trauma-informed responses for youth vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation