The geographies and complexities of online networks in the off-street sex market

Citation

Kjellgren R (2024) The geographies and complexities of online networks in the off-street sex market. Criminology & Criminal Justice. https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958241245287

Abstract
Exploitation and human trafficking in sex markets tend to include both online and offline spaces. Understanding the scale, complexity and geography of networks is important in policing human trafficking and online escort adverts are often used to identify organised crime in this context. This article aims to make a methodological contribution to how data relating to online networks in the sex market can be collected and analysed. Through the application of web scraping, social network analysis and principal component analysis, the digital traces of 15,016 online networks operating on an adult services website were analysed in relation to their complexity and geographical patterning. The findings suggest that structural and geographical characteristics are useful for understanding the heterogeneity of online networks. Analysing networks, as opposed to assessing escort adverts, offers a more robust approach to understanding the sex market, which is more sensitive to the continuum of experiences encapsulated therein.

Keywords
Criminal networks; human trafficking; online spaces; open-source intelligence; organised crime; policing

Journal
Criminology & Criminal Justice

People

Dr Richard Kjellgren

Research Fellow, Faculty of Social Sciences