September 1, 2008

The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in New York City. Volume Two, Formative Evaluation: The New York City Demonstration

This is the second of two volumes by Amy Muslim, Melissa Labriola, and Michael Rempel that discuss the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) in New York City. This volume begins by describing the development of the Coalition to Address the Sexual Exploitation of Children (CASEC) to address child prostitution in New York City, and federal funding that was provided to expand and bolster the collaborative efforts among government agencies and service providers to prevent and respond to CSEC. The demonstration project allowed for the hiring of a dedicated project director to coordinate activities and convene CASEC meetings, the fostering better information exchange and collaboration, housing for CSEC youth citywide, and the development of a prevention curriculum targeting group homes and schools. Finally, a large portion of the funding went to enhance the prosecution of exploiters in the borough of Queens. An evaluation of the project sought to assess and monitor CASEC initiatives and strategies. The project's goals, operations, strengths, weaknesses, and obstacles to success were examined. In addition, quasi-experimental analysis was conducted to test whether prosecution outcomes changed after the implementation of the enhanced prosecution initiative in Queens. Finally, a 25-year analysis of criminal justice trends in all five boroughs of New York City was conducted regarding child prostitution, exploitation, and solicitation offenses. Chapter 2 of the report describes the research design and methodology, Chapter 3 presents the 25-year trend analysis, and Chapter 4 documents the evolution of the demonstration project as a whole and reviews core elements of the CASEC logic model. Chapters 5 through 8 then describe each aspect of the logic model in depth, including: the citywide task force, prosecution initiatives, housing and other programs, and prevention. The report concludes the demonstration project experienced a number of successes and achieved many of its goals.