Description
Without abdicating their ultimate responsibility for law enforcement and criminal justice, Western governments are increasingly seeking to delegate aspects of this task to the private and voluntary sectors. How far can the process go? Will it achieve a cheaper, more flexible and effective service? What problems of accountability and safeguards does it raise?
A distinguished international team of authors assesses both the actual and potential impact of privatization in this crucial and highly controversial area. Drawing upon a range of theoretical perspectives, they examine the experience of private prisons, especially in North America, the activities of private security firms and current developments in the use of electronic monitoring techniques.
Privatizing Criminal Justice explores the changing relations between the state and the market- particularly the expanding role of the voluntary sector - and evaluates whether privatization can improve the control of crime and the administration of justice.
Roger Matthews is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and a member of the Centre for Criminology at Middlesex Polytechnic. He is co-editor (with Jock Young) of Confronting Crime (Sage 1986) and editor of Informal Justice? (Sage 1988).
