Emails, Tracey Kyckelhahn, Ph.D., statistician, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, Jan. 30, 2015

8:30 a.m.

The raw numbers for the 83% figure are 345 U.S. citizens over 419 total victims with known citizenship status.

These numbers are not national numbers.  They’re based only on some task forces.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Tracey Kyckelhahn, Ph.D.

Statistician

Bureau of Justice Statistics

U.S. Department of Justice

From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)

Sent: Friday, January 30, 2015 11:15 AM

To: Kyckelhahn, Tracey

Subject: RE: human trafficking numbers

Here are some questions:

In the calculation, why leave out those whose citizenship was unknown?

If this result (the 83 percent) is not a national number, how would you describe it to a general audience, in detail? (The senator’s office has pointed out nothing in the agency account of the research cautioned against viewing the 83 percent figure as a national estimate.)

Is there other research revealing/showing the citizenship of U.S. sex trafficking victims?

In the calculation, why leave out those whose citizenship was unknown?

10:35 a.m.

To get the percent, you have to divide the number of citizens by the total number of citizens and non-citizens is known.  If you don’t know whether a victim is a citizen or not, they cannot be included because you don’t know where to put them.  You would have to make an assumption about their citizen status.  Including them only in the denominator assumes, almost certainly erroneously, that all victims whose citizenship is not known is a non-citizen.

If this result (the 83 percent) is not a national number, how would you describe it to a general audience, in detail? (The senator’s office has pointed out nothing in the agency account of the research cautioned against viewing the 83 percent figure as a national estimate.)

I would say these data were from the 18 of 42 federally funded task forces that were consistent reporters of the cases they were investigating, as described in detail on p. 5.  There was extensive discussion in the report that discussed the data quality issues and that the data only came from federally funded task forces.

Is there other research revealing/showing the citizenship of U.S. sex trafficking victims?

I have not been heavily involved in this area for years, but I seriously doubt there are national estimates of this.  At best there are probably studies of specific cities.