NCJ Number
174108
Date Published
1996
Length
68 pages
Annotation
This report argues that the most cost-effective way to reduce crime is to increase private sector involvement, describes the variety of current private-sector criminal justice activities, and suggests further ways of increasing privatization.
Abstract
The discussion notes that almost everything that governments do, including police, security, jails, prisons, and court-related services, is being contracted out somewhere in the United States. Potential benefits include reduced costs, flexibility, and enhanced quality. Pitfalls include making criminalization even more attractive as a proposed solution to political problems and the potential of corruption, politics, and bureaucratic tendencies toward overregulation to undermine competition and destroy the potential benefits. Another issue related to private involvement in criminal justice is the low level of citizen crime reporting, the first step of essential involvement by private citizens. Not reporting is a natural reaction to the high cost of victim involvement with the criminal justice system relative to the low expected benefits due to the system's ineffectiveness. The reasons for the low level of private-sector involvement in the production of arrests and prosecutions also explain the widespread private investments in protection through observing people and places that criminals may attack and apprehending criminals in the act, actions to enhance property security, and behavioral adjustments to avoid crime. Private justice in various forms has a long history and is exemplified by the shift of dispute resolution into private forums. Further privatization options in criminal justice range from more contracting out, to lifting legal barriers that limit the use of private security, to a major reorientation of criminal justice into a restitution-based system that allows private courts (arbitrators or mediators) to determine restitution fines and private prison forms to collect them. Tables, footnotes, and 109 references