Exploring Minor Perpetration: Novel Insights into Minors Who are Sex Traffickers

Author: Dominguez, Ezequiel; Weide, Arianna & Roe-Sepowitz, Dominique

Abstract: This article examines the rarely analyzed phenomenon of minors identified as sex traffickers through a secondary analysis of 2,032 sex trafficking cases investigated by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department between 2011 and 2024. Thirty cases (1.5%) involved minors who recruited, controlled, and/or profited from peers. Using a deductive descriptive design informed by prior trafficking research, case records were analyzed to assess offender demographics, recruitment tactics, methods of control, and legal outcomes. The findings indicate that peer-to-peer trafficking is a distinct phenomenon within domestic minor sex trafficking and cannot be fully understood through the prevailing assumption that all minors are victims in any given sex trafficking situation. Records did not consistently document prior victimization, and legal responses to these cases varied, reflecting gaps in how systems recognize and respond to juvenile traffickers. Together, these insights call for developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed responses that balance accountability, prevention, and rehabilitation while advancing research that moves beyond rigid assumptions of minors’ roles in trafficking.

Keywords: juvenile offenders, human trafficking, sex trafficking, minors, peer-to-peer trafficking