413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Appendix J
Stakeholder Informed Consent Form
Estimating the Unlawful Commercial Sex Economy in the United States
INTRODUCTION AND INFORMED CONSENT FORM
Hello, my name is _______________ and I represent The Urban Institute, a nonprofit research
organization in Washington, DC. Researchers at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center and John
Jay College have been tasked by the Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice to measure the
scope and structure of the unlawful commercial sex economy (UCSE) in the U.S. Study findings will
help us to close the gap in our understanding of the nature of UCSE activities and their extent.
We would like to invite you to be interviewed as part of this research study. The interview will last
approximately one hour and includes questions about your involvement in the investigation and
prosecution of closed UCSE cases in your jurisdiction.
I am asking for your consent to be interviewed as a primary stakeholder. It is important to understand:
1. You do not have to participate. Your decision on whether or not to participate will never be
made known to anyone, not even program staff.
2. You may stop participating in the study anytime.
If you participate in this research, we promise you the following things:
Confidentiality. Everything you report on any interview will be kept in strictest confidence.
Only the people doing the research will see any information that identifies you personally.
Your name will never be used in any report. The answers you provide during an interview will
be combined with answers from many individuals and will be reported in the aggregate without
a link to your name. However, because there are a limited number of law enforcement,
prosecutors and public defenders that work on cases related to the UCSE in your jurisdiction, it
is possible for someone to deductively determine who was potentially interviewed for the
purposes of this study.
Everyone who works on this study has signed a Pledge of Confidentiality requiring them not to
tell anyone outside the research staff anything you tell the researchers. The only exception is if
you tell the interviewer about your intention to harm yourself or commit a specific crime
against someone else it may have to be reported. All information you provide to us is protected
by federal statute. That statute protects all information we have about you from being turned
over to anyone, even if ordered by a court, without your consent. That is, all information will
be kept private like a medical record.
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