In a classic example of the diffusion of law, Russia agreed to pass anti-trafficking legislation when it became a signatory to the Transnational Organized Crime Convention and its optional Palermo Protocol on human trafficking in 2000. Three years later, following pressure from the United States Government and lengthy internal debates among Russian lawmakers and law enforcement officials, President Vladimir Putin signed into law revisions to the Criminal Code that added articles 127.1 on human trafficking (torgovlia liud΄mi) and 127.2 on the use of slave labor (ispol΄zovanie rabskogo truda). The opening chapters of Trafficking Justice offer a revealing sociological portrait of human trafficking in post-communist Russia as well as an assessment of the legal and political considerations that produced the 2003 law and follow-up legislation. However, the heart of Lauren McCarthy's prodigiously-researched work is a finely-grained analysis of the everyday disincentives that make police, criminal investigators, prosecutors, and even judges reluctant to bring defendants to justice under the new articles on human trafficking.

Building on the work of Petr Solomon, Ella Paneyakh, and others on incentive structures in the Russian justice system, McCarthy illustrates in successive chapters on the identification, investigation, and prosecution of criminal cases the complex mix of organizational cultures, professional performance indicators, and political signals that explain the limited use of human trafficking laws. Because pay and promotion are tied to timely and successful disposition of criminal cases, Russian law enforcement officials have shied away from charging suspects under the human trafficking articles, whose evidentiary and procedural standards are more demanding than those attendant to more traditional crimes, such as kidnapping, rape, false imprisonment, and a recently-strengthened article on recruitment into prostitution (Article 240). Given that sanctions under these more familiar criminal code articles are only marginally less severe than those resulting from human trafficking convictions, there is little reason for the notoriously risk-averse criminal investigators and prosecutors in Russia to venture into the uncertain terrain of human trafficking charges.

While legal and institutional analyses are center stage in Trafficking Justice, the work does not ignore politics. McCarthy recognizes the support for the new human trafficking legislation contained in a ministerial order that added “a specific human trafficking data field (stroka) into annual report forms rather than just counting it in the broader category ‘Crimes against Freedom, Honor, and Dignity of the Person.’” As she is quick to note, however, “without a corresponding [political] campaign it seems not to have had much effect (212).” The more serious political blow to the implementation of human trafficking legislation was a campaign of a different sort: the assault on NGOS, especially those receiving foreign funding. As McCarthy explains, the political leadership's decision to turn the screws on NGOs all but ended the impressive cooperation on human trafficking cases that had begun to develop between law enforcement agencies and victims' advocacy groups in some Russian cities. In short, Russia had taken only the first of three steps needed to fight human trafficking. It had criminalized the act but it failed to educate and mobilize the public and to protect the victims of the crime.

Trafficking Justice will appeal most directly to scholars of Russian and comparative legal affairs as well as political scientists interested in theories and evidence on the behavior of the agents of state. However, there is much here to attract readers without a background in law or political science. General readers would be drawn to the wrenching accounts of sex trafficking, slave labor, and the sale of infants, which provide a window on the underside of Russian society. Students at any level will appreciate the author's ability to introduce Russian legal institutions and the Russian criminal process in language that is remarkably accessible. And graduate students in the Russian field will want to read the fifteen-page appendix that explains how the author navigated her way around the barriers separating her from the data and interviews required for the project.

McCarthy argues in the appendix for bringing comparative knowledge to field work, in part because knowing something about American criminal justice allowed her to exchange information with, and not just take information from, her interlocutors. In light of this advice, it is perhaps a little surprising that Trafficking Justice did not develop further the many parallels between the attitudes and behavior of Russian and American criminal justice personnel whose portfolios include human trafficking cases.