Chester, Berks, Montgomery counties among tops in Pa.
Chester, Montgomery and Berks counties were among the counties in Pennsylvania with the highest number of human-trafficking offenses during the most recent five-year period for which those statistics are available.
There were 116 human trafficking-related offenses filed in Montgomery County Court between 2017 and 2021, representing about 11% of the statewide total and second only to Lancaster County, which had 24% of the filings, according to data compiled by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.
During the same five-year period, Berks authorities filed charges for 106 human trafficking-related offenses, representing 9.7% of the statewide total, to rank fourth, while Chester County ranked fifth with 69, or 6.3% of the statewide total, according to the AOPC data.
From January 2017 through December 2021, there were 259 human-trafficking cases involving a total of 1,096 human trafficking-related offenses filed statewide, the AOPC said in a special report, “Human Trafficking in Pennsylvania.”
The charges included involuntary servitude, trafficking in individuals for financial benefit and trafficking of minors.
Lancaster County’s 259 filings represented nearly a quarter of the state’s human-trafficking-offense filings during the five-year period.
Dauphin County, with 110 human trafficking-related offenses filed between 2017 and 2021, representing 10.04% of the statewide total, ranked third in the state.
The remaining top 10 counties with the highest percentage of human trafficking-related offenses filed between 2017 and 2021 were Philadelphia, 5%; Monroe, 4%; Delaware, 4%; Blair, 4%; and York, 3%.
AOPC highlights the work of the courts with data and statistics obtained through the judiciary’s case management systems, interactive dashboards and other research.
AOPC compiles the data but does not interpret it. The agency released the data in January, which is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.
Pennsylvania’s Act 105, enacted in late 2014, expanded the state’s legal definition of human trafficking to include sex trafficking as well as labor trafficking.
As defined in the law, human trafficking is a type of human rights abuse in which people profit from the exploitation of others, mainly through the use of force, fraud or coercion to manipulate victims into engaging in sex acts or labor/services in exchange for something of value.
Specific offenses that fall under the human trafficking law include trafficking in minors, trafficking in individuals for financial benefit, and patronizing victims of sexual servitude and involuntary servitude.
According to AOPC data, 78% of those convicted of human trafficking offenses were male and about 41% were between the ages of 30 and 39.
Law enforcement officials in the region have used the law to prosecute several human trafficking-related cases in recent years:
Berks District Attorney John T. Adams said a county task force was established in 2019 to combat the problem of sex trafficking.
Besides arresting several perpetrators, Adams said, the task force has led authorities to identify victims of human trafficking.
The task force works with a number of partner organizations within and outside of Berks that render an array of support services to survivors of commercial sexual exploitation, from residential programs that provide therapeutic and spiritual care to additional services to legal services and advocacy organizations such as Morgantown-based FREE (Freedom and Restoration for Everyone Enslaved).
Montgomery County law enforcement officials announced the creation of the Human Trafficking/Child Exploitation Task Force in 2021. It’s a partnership between the county detective bureau, five police departments and the Mission Kids Child Advocacy Center.
The task force assists local police departments with the specific goal of identifying, searching for and recovering runaways who are at risk of becoming victims of human trafficking.
“Trafficking women and children — forcing them into having sex for money or drugs — is an all-too-frequent crime that happens even though residents may not hear much about it. The most vulnerable population to fall prey to that victimization are children who have run away,” Montgomery District Attorney Kevin R. Steele said at the time.