engleski

Police College Students Attitudes About Human Trafficking

It is believed that human trafficking, due to its lucrative nature, is important part of organized crime. Human trafficking victims are often fearful of seeking help or reporting their victimization to the police because of intimidation from traffickers and lack of any knowledge about their rights. Moreover, victims sometimes deny their victimization because they are embarrassed about things they were forced to do. All of that implies importance of proactive policing. In order to achieve better detection and identification of human trafficking victims and to conduct victim- sensitive criminal investigation, police officers have to be well trained and qualified. Police College students’ attitudes about the specific topic may give some answers to the question of current education on this specific topic. This study sought to get the insight into: 1. main sources of knowledge about human trafficking, 2. attitudes about the main reasons of victimization, 3. attitudes about the best anti-trafficking measures, 4. perception of the potential efficiency of various institutions in suppression of human trafficking, and 5. perception of personal competencies for work in this area. Apart from that we wanted to test differences in regard to participants’ gender. Police college students in Zagreb (N=234) were asked to fill out the questionnaire in January of 2017 in their classes. Results show that media coverage of human trafficking and reading professional literature are the main sources of knowledge about human trafficking. Students perceive naivety, poverty, and poor education as the main push factors. Severe offender punishment, better international cooperation, and good control of state border are listed as the best anti-trafficking measures. The Ministry of the Interior, the United Nations and the Ministry of Justice are seen as most powerful institutions in anti-trafficking efforts. Self- perception of competencies for working in this filed is quite low. There are some differences in sources of knowledge about human trafficking, push factors and powerful institutions in anti-trafficking efforts regarding students’ gender.

human trafficking ; victim ; police ; students ; attitudes

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