This special issue focuses on a crime that has been classified by the United Nations as the third most profitable crime in the world — human trafficking (Fichtelberg 2008). 1 The international contributions in this issue cover a range of key social, economic, political and legal issues as they relate to human trafficking. The genesis for this collection evolved out of a major project led by Philip Reichel which was completed in 2007. Reichel and an international team examined Canadian and US practices of combating human trafficking. In addition, the project explored a range of initiatives used in Europe and proposed by the United Nations.2 Before presenting an overview of the articles, we thought it instructive to provide a synopsis of some of the fundamental issues involved in human trafficking. Our thinking was that a brief discussion of these more general, descriptive, theoretical and practical issues would provide some context for readers unfamiliar with the subject of human trafficking.

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Using the procedure of informal probation, the juvenile court in Columbia County (Georgia) is experimenting with a panel of age peers who determine case disposition for certain offenses and offenders. The authors describe the innovative progam and present the results of a qualitative program assessment using information from in-depth interviews and questionnaire responses. The data indicate the program is popular with peer jury members, youthful offenders, and parents. The positive nature of the responses suggests that further research be done to determine if peer juries are any more or less successful than other juvenile court programs.

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