Four years after New York’s comptroller warned that New York City was missing required safeguards for children at risk of sex trafficking, a follow-up audit says major gaps remain. The latest findings raise fresh questions about whether vulnerable youth are being consistently screened, counted and connected to services that could help keep them safe.
A new follow-up audit obtained by News 12 found that the city’s Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS, could not show auditors it was enforcing its own screening policies. The audit also questioned whether New York City could support the trafficking numbers it reports to City Hall or document that identified youth received services such as safe housing, mental health care and legal assistance.
The concerns trace back to a 2022 audit by the state comptroller’s office. That review found ACS could not prove that 69% of required trafficking screenings had been completed, while the Department of Youth and Community Development, or DYCD, lacked procedures requiring providers to screen young people for trafficking indicators. Auditors also found that roughly 80% of ACS staff had not completed required trafficking training on time.
According to News 12’s report, only two of the nine recommendations from the original audit were fully implemented. Three were partially implemented and four were not implemented, prompting Comptroller Tom DiNapoli to say the follow-up suggested strongly that more work remained and that the gaps could have real-life consequences.
City reports show more youth being identified
ACS and DYCD’s own 2025 annual report says the city and its Safe Harbour providers served 970 youth who were referred as, self-reported as or determined to be sexually exploited or at risk of exploitation. That was up from 843 youth in 2024, although the report cautions that the categories include both exploited and at-risk youth and cannot be cleanly separated.
The same 2025 city report says 837 of the 970 cases had an unknown agency-contact designation. It also notes that 250 additional youth were assessed but either were determined not to be at risk or did not have enough information for a determination, underscoring how difficult it is to produce clean numbers in a population often facing trauma, fear of disclosure or uncertainty about what happened to them.
Agencies point to policies, databases and provider reporting
ACS’s current public guidance says its Child Trafficking Database is the required electronic mechanism for screening children for sex trafficking, documenting service referrals and notifying the agency’s trafficking office when a screening reaches the federal definition level. The agency also lists ongoing training for child-welfare staff and providers, including sessions scheduled Thursday.
DYCD’s joint report says its runaway and homeless youth providers are instructed to complete a Safe Harbour report for each newly reported case and confirm monthly when there are no new reports. Those procedures provide a framework for tracking cases, but the new audit’s central criticism is that auditors could not verify the framework was being consistently enforced or that the reported totals were adequately supported.
What the audit leaves city officials to prove
The issue is not simply whether New York has policies on paper. Under the Safe Harbour framework and city reporting requirements, officials must be able to demonstrate that screening happened, that records are accurate and that youth identified as trafficked or at risk were offered appropriate support.
The audit does not identify one Bronx program as the sole source of the problem; it describes a citywide oversight failure affecting agencies and contracted providers across the five boroughs. For families and advocates, the next meaningful sign of progress will be documentation that can withstand another review—not another promise that the system is working.
