Developing Criminal Justice Response to Issues of Human Trafficking - Critical Essay

Introduction

The journal is from international criminal and justice review and it was authored by Anne Gallagher and Paul Holmes in 2008). The issue being addressed is on how to develop an effective justice system for those people who are accused of human trafficking. To develop the system, there is a need to use historical lessons.

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Article Discussion

The hypothesis being tested in the article is if there is an effective and well-coordinated mechanism in place to fight human trafficking, and then the rate of trafficking is likely to go down. The author also introduces the idea of if there is cooperation or and the cross-fertilization of ideas across borders, then the fight against human trafficking can be effective. The research design used in the paper is a casual design. The authors help the readers and the relevant parties to understand phenomena through conditional statements. For instance, in the article, if there are effective rules to counter human traffickers, then the issue will go down or likely stop (Gallagher & Holmes, 2008).

The paper is a compilation of various research papers that span over a period of three years. More so, the article uses guidelines from the United Nations trafficking principles and principles from the European convention against human trafficking. The main points raised in the research paper show a diversified period since they are from different sources. For instance, the principles adopted by the United Nations are for the years 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. The same case applies to those of the European Union.

The operational definitions in the research are human trafficking, trafficking in persons and international law. Other operational definitions are the transnational organized crime and comparative criminal justice. The author uses the nonrandom sample to show that human trafficking exists globally as a trait (Gallagher & Holmes, 2008). Moreover, the study is more exploratory and the population to be sampled is quite limitless. Therefore, nonrandom samples provide the best information for the research.

Paper Findings

At the end of the research, the author discovers that there is a need to have a comprehensive legal framework that meets international standards. The legal framework should be effective and cover all the areas that trafficking entails. There is also a need to have specialized law enforcement with the capacity to investigate human smuggling (Gallagher & Holmes, 2008). With a well informed and reliable judicial system, it will be possible to protect the witness and give the right sentencing.

Conclusion

The paper concludes by noting that human trafficking thrives due to impunity. The people who are involved in the crime are often set free without the right trial. On the other hand, the victims are not easily identified, and those who are known are often criminalized. By criminalizing the victims, it becomes hard to prosecute the traffickers. However, the changes noted in international law have gone a long way in seeing that trafficking is brought to its knees (Gallagher & Holmes, 2008). Through the right implementation across nations, it will be possible to end the menace even though much remains to be done. Ethical issues that emerge in the paper are governments willing to put enough effort to fight the human trafficking menace. The issues of the measures that are in place to protect the victims of the violence are also raised.

References

Gallagher, A., & Holmes, P. (2008). Developing an effective criminal justice response to human trafficking: Lessons from the front line. International criminal justice review, 18(3), 318-343.