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The Criminalized Victim: Evaluating Public Perceptions of Sex Trafficked Individuals

ABSTRACT Individuals who have been sex trafficked are continuously being targeted for prostitution and other related offenses instead of being recognized for their victimization. This may occur due to a fundamental lack of understanding of the sex-trafficked experience, allowing for misperceptions to form unhindered. Individuals with these misperceptions then go on to form laws and services intended to aid victims, but instead leave them vulnerable and criminalized. This study assessed whether an educational intervention on the experience of a sex-trafficked individual could influence public perceptions of free will doubt and criminal culpability. This study used a non-equivalent groups posttest-only design to administer an article on the sex trafficking experience, including the trauma and coercion a victim faces, or a neutral article on optical illusions, to then assess sex trafficking knowledge, free will doubt, and culpability beliefs. Participants (N = 445) were recruited from the general public through Amazon Mechanical Turk and were reimbursed for their involvement. Results suggest that even when individuals display a basic understanding of the sex trafficking experience, they do not fully comprehend the complexities of how free will can be compromised by trauma and coercion, ultimately affecting perceptions of personal culpability for criminal activity.