The University of New Hampshire has received more than $2 million in grants to study child sex trafficking and the role of technology cyberstalking and other crimes.
The grants from the National Institute of Justice will go to the Crimes Against Children Research Center.
Two of the grants will aim to develop new information on child sex trafficking victimization and a third will study how the technology is used in crimes like sextortion and cyberstalking. The research will study efforts to develop programs to work with sex trafficking victims and conduct several surveys, including one that examines crimes against young people facilitated by the internet and digital technology.
"Law enforcement has been trying in recent years to identify more juveniles engaged in commercial sexual exploitation and treat them as crime victims rather than as offenders and juvenile delinquents," said study director Kim Mitchell, a research associate professor of psychology. "Our study will assess whether police practices have been moving in the right direction."
