How Might Local Governments See Indicators of Human Trafficking Through Traveling Sales Crews?
This handout provides basic information about the dynamics and indicators of labor trafficking through traveling sales crews. Post-natural disaster clean-up crews operate in a similar way.
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Public Management Bulletin #18
This bulletin explores the unique opportunities that local governments have to prevent, identify, and/or intervene is the sex and labor trafficking of youth in our communities.
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Similar to most U.S. citizens, community advocates working to prevent or respond to human trafficking are likely to be mis- or uninformed about governmental functions, responsibilities, and lines of authority. That is understandable, given how complex and intertwined local, state, and federal programs and services can be.
Law enforcement agencies and departments of social services are two governmental departments likely to be involved in direct intervention efforts with victims of trafficking. People in other departments can play key roles as well, not only in identifying potential indicators of trafficking or in contributing services that enable the long-term recovery of victims, but also in informing or supporting change efforts.
The purpose of this publication is to provide anti–human trafficking advocates basic guidance in navigating city and county governments. Few answers would apply to all jurisdictions about who to contact with questions, or how processes work. Instead, this publication provides generic answers to beginning inquiries to help community advocates better understand government roles, functions, or procedures.
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Property tax officials, like many other local government staff in different roles, have professional reasons to visit homes, businesses, and construction sites every day. Their work positions them to see indicators of sex and labor trafficking in the communities they serve. This article will address what human trafficking is, what it looks like in our communities, how property tax officials can recognize the indicators of human trafficking, and how they should respond if they see those indicators.
It may be rare to see indicators of human trafficking, but the crime is serious enough to warrant building awareness among local government staff. The inspiration for this article came from a county tax-office appraiser who attended a training session about human trafficking and described inspecting a large home that had a basement filled with bunk beds. The beds did not appear to be for the benefit of visiting grandchildren.
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This completes a series of three Public Management Bulletins (PMB) by Margaret F. Henderson addressing the increasingly prevalent problem of human trafficking in North Carolina. PMB No. 12 introduces the issue and provides global as well as local context for its growth, while PMB No. 14 explains how government works at the local, state, and national levels and offers advice to community advocates on how to seek help from local government officials in addressing the issue. This bulletin focuses on the business models (or strategies) traffickers use to manage their human trafficking enterprises and reports on focus group discussions with local government officials to determine how greater awareness of these models and their various signs within the community might be incorporated into their daily work.
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The Basic Information about Human Trafficking
Human trafficking involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion by one person to compel another person to perform a profitable labor or sex act. Victims can be adults or children, foreign or domestic born. The trafficking can involve purely labor, purely commercial sex, or a blend of both.
To employ a common description, human trafficking is something that often is “hidden in plain sight” in our communities. Whereas Hollywood regularly employs imagery of physical restraints and kidnapping, the reality is that the indicators of trafficking can be much more subtle and situational. Appendix A shares some indicators that might be visible to outsiders. Given that trafficking takes many different forms, the indicators will vary depending on the situations and people involved.
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Local government leaders face a variety of problems in doing the work of local government and must use different approaches and resources to act in the best interest of their communities. Some issues are difficult to solve, and their root causes are often obscure and can remain untreated. These persistent challenges are “wicked” problems, and they can threaten the vitality of communities. Local governments are well positioned to play a leading role in coordinating the efforts of businesses, nonprofits, citizen groups, and other governments to help maximize resources and take meaningful actions to tackle these issues. This guidebook aims to equip local government leaders with tools to develop new approaches for identifying, understanding, and addressing wicked problems.
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This publication is designed for local boards, from ABC and social services boards to boards of elections, planning boards, boards of education, and area mental health authorities. It covers subjects such as the use of agendas, the powers of the chair, citizen participation in meetings, closed sessions, minutes, and the use of procedural motions. The book contains helpful appendixes that summarize the requirements for each procedural motion and list other statutes that apply to particular local government boards. Suggested Rules of Procedure for Small Local Government Boards, Second Edition, 1998, was reprinted and reformatted as a publication. This reprint adds to Rule 5 and Rule 23 new material that addresses 2005 legislation pertaining to public comment periods and that was originally included as an errata sheet to the 1998 edition. If you own the original 1998 edition and the 2005 errata sheet, you do not need to buy the redesigned publication unless you want the newly worded text.
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The adoption of a budget is one of the most important activities undertaken by local government officials each year. The budget serves as the elected board’s primary opportunity to establish community priorities and as a tool for planning community services and programs, communicating priorities, and properly managing finances. The budget process, however, with its big numbers, multiple acronyms, and counterintuitive rules, can be confusing.
A book in the Local Government Board Builders series, this guide is intended to remove the mystery of the budget process and to equip North Carolina’s city and county governing bodies with the tools they need to actively participate in the process.
“I am impressed with this guidebook on budgeting. It answered several questions I had as a newly elected commissioner, and it is a great reference for explaining the process on how to reach a budget ordinance.”
Kitty Barnes
Chair
Catawba County Board of Commissioners“This guidebook does a great job of providing context for local government budgeting. Each topic covered makes sense in the budget world, and the book will be helpful to those involved in local government budgeting.”
Scott Fogleman
Budget Director
Town of Cary
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This first book in the new series, Local Government Board Builders, focuses on the requirements for and tools used by lead governing officers: mayors of city councils and chairs of county boards of commissioners. Mayors and board chairs hold the keys to effective meetings for their governing bodies and must create effective working relations with public managers and other organizations. This book emphasizes how these leadership roles should work, including tips for setting agendas and maintaining forward motion and participation in meetings. Intangible essentials, such as keeping a fair and impartial manner and respecting professional roles, are also clarified.
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