Amy Farrell

Director and Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice; Co-Director of the Violence and Justice Research Lab
Professor Amy Farrell’s research is aimed at understanding and describing how the criminal justice system administers justice. Over the past decade she has focused much of her scholarly attention on understanding how the criminal justice system responds to the newly prioritized crimes such as human trafficking. Although not a new phenomenon, human trafficking was criminalized by the federal government in 2000. Since that time all fifty states have passed laws outlawing the practice of human trafficking and devoting resources to its identification and eradication. In support of this research, she has studied and published research about how local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies identify, investigate, and prosecute human trafficking cases.
Additionally, she has completed research projects examining labor trafficking victimization of both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals residing in the U.S. She also has conducted numerous studies examining how changes in state and federal human trafficking laws impact the identification and prosecution of human trafficking offenders. As part of this body of work, Professor Farrell has sought to understand how the public views the problem of human trafficking and what responses they expect from state and federal governments to address the problem. She testified about police identification of human trafficking before the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. She was also appointed to the Massachusetts Attorneys General Human Trafficking Policy Task Force and currently serves on the Governors Working Group on Human Trafficking in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In addition to studying criminal justice system responses to human trafficking victimization, Professor Farrell has examined how variable levels of racial group and gender representation among court workgroups relate differences in charging, adjudication, and sentencing.
- Understanding the Physical and Psychological Health and Wellness Needs of Minor Sex Trafficking Victims (January, 2021-December 31, 2023), Principal Investigator, National Institute of Justice, Grant # 2020-VT-BX-0111 ($955,786)
- Understanding the Trafficking of Children for the Purpose of Labor in the United States (January 1, 2020 – December 31, 2022), Principal Investigator, National Institute of Justice, Grant # 2019-VT-BX-0038 ($664,690).
- de Vries, Ieke, Amy Farrell, Vanessa Bouche, Dana Wolfe. 2020. Crime frames and gender differences in the activation of crime concern and crime responses. Journal of Criminal Justice, 66.
- de Vries, Ieke*, Matthew Kafafian*, Kelly Goggin*, Amy Farrell, Susan Goldfarb, Elizabeth Bouchard. 2020. Enhancing the identification of commercial sexual exploitation among a population of high-risk youths using predictive regularization models. Child Maltreatment, 25(3): 318-327.
- Farrell, Amy, Meredith Dank, Ieke de Vries*, Matthew Kafafian*, Andrea Hughes and Sarah Lockwood*. 2019. Failing victims: The police response to human trafficking. Criminology and Public Policy, 18(3): 649-673.
- Pennington, Liana* and Amy Farrell. 2019. The role of voice in the legal process. Criminology, 57(2): 343-368.
- Farrell, Amy, Vanessa Bouché and Dana Wolfe. 2019. Assessing the impact of state human trafficking legislation on criminal justice system outcomes. Law & Policy, 41(2): 174-197.
- Givelber, Daniel and Amy Farrell. 2012. Not Guilty: Are the Acquitted Innocent, New York University Press.
- Johnson, Devon, Patricia Warren and Amy Farrell 2015. Deadly injustice: Trayvon Martin, Race, and the Criminal Justice System, New York, University Press.
(* Indicates current or former mentored student)
- Mentor of the Year Award, American Society Criminology, 2014
- W.E.B. DuBois Fellowship on crime, justice and culture, co-recipient, National Institute of Justice, 2006
- Graduate Research Fellowship, National Institute of Justice, 1999
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Education
PhD, Law, Policy and Society, Northeastern University, 2001
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Contact
617.373.7439 am.farrell@northeastern.edu -
Address
204 Churchill Hall
360 Huntington Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
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Human Trafficking
CRIM 1400
Offers an overview of human trafficking in its various forms. Emphasizes understanding the experiences and needs of trafficking victims and the methods of operations of traffickers and their networks across various cultural contexts. The trafficking of persons for sex or labor through force, fraud, or coercion has become an increasingly serious problem in modern society. Federal, state, and local criminal justice authorities have been tasked with the responsibility of identifying and rescuing trafficking victims and prosecuting their perpetrators. Offers students an opportunity to critically evaluate the social and cultural practices that give rise to and support human trafficking in the United States and around the globe.