Market Failure Versus Government Failure in the Production of Adjudication (From Privatizing the United States Justice System: Police, Adjudication, and Corrections Services From the Private Sector, P 203-225, 1992, Gary W Bowman, Simon Hakim, et al., eds. - See NCJ-137785)

• NCJ Number: 137796
• Author(s): B L Benson
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 23 pages
• Sale Source: McFarland & Company, Inc.
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Although some of the arguments against the privatization of adjudication may have some validity, the question of whether or not to privatize should be examined with respect to the relative performance of private and public systems of law and order, based on the recognition that neither system will be perfect.

Abstract

Such an analysis would focus on which approach is likely to generate the most significant misallocations of scarce resources. Consideration of the issues of external costs and benefits and monopoly power indicate that a competitive private sector involves institutions and incentives that are far less cumbersome than those that have arisen in the public sector. Although these private courts and private judges would not be perfect 100 percent of the time, they offer citizens more benefits than a system composed only of the cumbersome public institutions. Notes and 53 references