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Store: An Independent Institute Book
2 Figures • 1 Tables
© 2003 |
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CHANGING THE GUARD
Private Prisons and the Control of Crime
Edited by
Alexander T. Tabarrok
Foreword by
Charles H. Logan
Changing the Guard is an authoritative survey of one of the most controversial aspects of criminal justice and corrections: the growing use of private prisons.
When prison privatization began in the United States in the early 1980s, many policy analysts claimed it would increase costs, decrease quality and erode state authority. Has it? Changing the Guard brings together leading criminal justice researchers to tackle this and related questions: Does prison privatization make economic sense? What are the prospects for enlarging prison privatization?
Changing the Guard also examines the broader questions that surround the prison privatization debate: What are the historical precedents for prison privatization? What do we know about punishment and recidivism? How long must a prison sentence be to deter crime? Are too many people in prison or too few? Should legal reform take precedence over prison reform to ensure that privatization does not simply make the criminal justice system more efficient at abusing civil liberties and executing legal injustices?
Detailed Summary |
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Table of Contents
- Foreword
Charles Logan
- Chapter 1: Introduction
Alexander Tabarrok
- Chapter 2 The Economics of Prisons
Ken Avio
- Chapter 3 Correctional Privatization: An Assessment of Its Historical Origins, Present Status, and Future Prospects
Charles Thomas
- Chapter 4 Prisons and Corrections
Samuel Jan Brakel and Kimberly Ingersoll Gaylord
- Chapter 5 Do We Want the Production of Prisons Services to Be More Efficient?
Bruce Benson
Praise for Changing the Guard “Changing the Guard is the authoritative and definitive book on prison privatization. It brilliantly examines the full range of issues—history, status, economics, efficiency effectiveness, equity, morality, and recidivism, and addresses the fundamental societal costs and benefits of incarceration itself.”
—E. S. SAVAS, Professor, School of Public Affairs, Baruch College, City University of New York
“If you want to understand private prisons and how they fit into the criminal justice system, you need the information and analysis in this book. Changing the Guard does an outstanding job of combining a firm grounding of what we know about private prisons and how they work with great analysis of the economics and policy issues that surround the use of private prisons. Then it frosts the cake with some unique perspectives on both criminal justice and private prisons. Anyone who needs to make decisions about private prisons needs to read this book.”
—ADRIAN T. MOORE, Executive Director, Reason Public Policy Institute
“Changing the Guard is first-rate analysis of a moribund industry, its political-bureaucratic ills and the modest success of so-called prison privatization over the last two decades. Real experts point toward a crucial reform: foster competition for renewable contracts among public and private prison agencies to operate every facility, not just a few new ones.”
—MORGAN O. REYNOLDS, former Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Labor
“This book brings refreshing relief from the widespread cant and negativity about prisons in general and privately operated prisons in particular. . . . So much written about private prisons is tendentious and ideological, in contrast to the carefully researched contributions here.”
—CHARLES H. LOGAN, Professor of Sociology, University of Connecticut (from the Foreword)
About the Editor Alexander Tabarrok is Research Director for The Independent Institute, Assistant Editor of The Independent Review, and Associate Professor of Economics, George Mason University. He received his Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University, and he has taught at the University of Virginia and Ball State University. Dr. Tabarrok is also the editor of the Independent Institute books, Entrepreneurial Economics: Bright Ideas from the Dismal Science (Oxford University Press) and The Voluntary City: Choice, Community and Civil Society (University of Michigan Press). His scholarly articles have appeared in the Journal of Law and Economics, Public Choice, Economic Inquiry, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Review of Austrian Economics, Kyklos and many other journals. Dr. Tabarrok is the recipient of the Snavely Award, and he has been an Earhart Foundation Fellow and George A. and Frances Ball Foundation Fellow.
About the Foreword Author
Charles H. Logan is Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut and an internationally known authority on criminology and private prisons.
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