Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Prostituted Teens, Annotated Bibliography Example

Curtis, R., Terry, K., Dank, M., Dombrowski, K., & Khan, B. (2008). The commercial sexual exploitation of children in New York City: executive summary. Retrieved from January 30, 2013, from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/225083.pdf

The authors dedicated their work to the overview of the commercial sexual exploitation experienced by children living in one of the largest US metropolitan areas. The authors revealed that such abhorrent crime as child sexual exploitation has become a real-life challenge that should be overcome by New York’s and international communities. The results of the report suggested that the number of children involved in pornography and prostitution is extremely high, and the solution of the problem is complicated by children’s unknown location, unawareness of their age and exploitation, and engagement of different institutions that reluctantly share information. Besides, the presented findings implied that the National Institute of Justice takes corresponding measures (including funding of the special social programs aimed to overcome the stated challenge) for overcoming the problem related to New York’s child commercial sexual exploitation.

From the critical point of view, the authors’ work possesses some strengths and weaknesses. The main strength consists in the presentation of the detailed qualitative and quantitative information associated with child commercial sexual exploitation. The principal weakness can be traced in a limited scope of the study focused on the investigation of the problem only in New York City.

The covered information about commercial sexual exploitation and the presentation of the findings based on empirical data on children’s involvement in this crime in the essential US metropolitan area make the authors’ work significant. The authors’ presentation of the mentioned evidence-based information will extend the in-depth understanding of the study topic. Hence, the present source is undoubtedly relevant, and should be used within the framework of the study dedicated to child and adolescent sexual exploitation and prostitution.

Finkelhor, D., & Ormrod, R. (2004). Prostitution of juveniles: patterns from NIBRS. Retrieved January 30, 2013, from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/203946.pdf

The authors’ work focuses on prostitution of juveniles in the territory of the USA, in particular, from the perspective of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), one of the agencies involved in the United States Department of Justice. The article provided the idea that juvenile prostitution, supposing violent victimization and sexual abuse of children, is believed to be more disturbing than adult prostitution mostly caused by individual voluntary initiative. According to the presented results, the impact of child and adolescent prostitution is devastating, since this crime leads not only to the neglect of young individuals’ interests, but also to multifaceted degradation, and even to diseases and deaths. In addition, the findings suggested that juvenile prostitution can be effectively countered with the help of specially designed programs and approaches aimed to eliminate or at least decrease the considerable amount of the juveniles involved in prostitution.

It is essential to mention that one may trace some obvious strengths and weaknesses in the authors’ work. The major strength lies in the detailed presentation of crime victimization statistics, research findings of the studies on special needs of adolescents involved in prostitution, and descriptions of the specific programs designed to eliminate the problem of juvenile prostitution. The main weakness consists in the discussion of the problem from OJJDP’s point of view and absence of data related to juvenile prostitution in different countries.

The significance of the authors’ work for the present study cannot be underestimated. By presenting detailed empirical data, the authors contributed to the investigation of the topic focused on commercial sexual exploitation of children and prostituted teens. Moreover, this work broadens the in-depth understanding of the problem from the perspective of law enforcement agencies responsible for the elimination of this problem. The obvious relevance of this source for the present study points to the necessity to use this authors’ work.