ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the immediate social environment in which internal (domestic) trafficking for child sexual exploitation occurs. It deals with key constructs in analysing and tackling group crime: offender and victim networking, co-offending (criminal collaboration) and co-victimisation (an analogous but long-overlooked construct relating to victims’ shared experiences of abuse). The chapter combines content analysis and social network analysis of sensitive police-held data from six major UK investigations, including the infamous Rochdale ‘grooming’ case. The results reveal an extremely and unusually ‘social’ sex crime. For example, the high co-offending rate stands out considering that the vast majority of sexual offenders act alone. Most offenders and victims were embedded in networks of association, typically linked by strong social bonds predating and extrinsic to the trafficking. Contrary to popular stereotypes of highly organised ‘Asian sex gangs’, the offender networks lacked hierarchy or other structural sophistication, clear ringleaders or broker figures. Underlining the relationship between connectivity and crime, better-connected offenders were found to commit more offences. Overall, this chapter highlights how important social relations are in facilitating, spreading and sustaining this form of human trafficking.
