To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice (Political Economy of the Austrian School Series) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Questions about crime policy are almost inevitably stated in a fashion that immediately eliminates a huge number of potential options..." (more)
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Product Description

In contrast to government's predominant role in criminal justice today, for many centuries crime control was almost entirely private and community-based. Government police forces, prosecutors, courts, and prisons are all recent historical developments–results of a political and bureaucratic social experiment which, Bruce Benson argues, neither protects the innocent nor dispenses justice.

In this comprehensive and timely book, Benson analyzes the accelerating trend toward privatization in the criminal justice system. In so doing, To Serve and Protect challenges and transcends both liberal and conservative policies that have supported government's pervasive role. With lucidity and rigor, he examines the gamut of private-sector input to criminal justice–from private-sector outsourcing of prisons and corrections, security, arbitration to full "private justice" such as business and community-imposed sanctions and citizen crime prevention. Searching for the most cost-effective methods of reducing crime and protecting civil liberties, Benson weighs the benefits and liabilities of various levels of privatization, offering correctives for the current gridlock that will make criminal justice truly accountable to the citizenry and will simultaneously result in reductions in the unchecked power of government.

About the Author

Bruce Ellis Benson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. He is the author of Graven Ideologies: Nietzsche, Derrida, and Marion on Modern Idolatry and The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 372 pages
• Publisher: NYU Press; 1 edition (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814713270
• ISBN-13: 978-0814713273
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,180,627 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant follow up to Benson's "The Enterprise of Law", September 11, 1999

By	David M. Kramer "murraylu" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

What I love about this book is that it is a must read for both Liberals and Conservatives alike. Benson shows step by step why our monopolized "justice" system works against real justice -- and why the poor are the most likely to suffer at its hands. What is most comforting to me (who wholeheartedly agrees with his findings) is his conclusion that whether or not people like it, the privatization of criminal justice is inevitably growing.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More timely than ever, unfortunately, September 26, 2001

By	John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Silver Lake, OH) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

In the wake of a terrible terrorist attack, various public voices are arguing for liberty-threatening countermeasures -- increases in federal power, the placement of federal marshals on aircraft, the unreasonable search and seziure of airline passengers, and so forth. Almost unnoticed and unmentioned is the fact that the terrorists succeeded in killing thousands using, apparently, no weapon more powerful than a box cutter.

A handful who are aware of this salient point are claiming that airline security was lax owing to "market failure." This is supposed to relieve us of the responsibility to establish security by means that respect rights.

But Bruce Benson's _To Serve and Protect_ addressed all of this several years ago -- broadly and in principle, though of course with no explicit discussion of the proper security measures for airlines to implement. What Benson provides in this volume is a thorough defense of a superficially counterintuitive claim that becomes less and less counterintuitive as time goes on: the free and private market is better, _much_ better, at providing security and criminal justice than is the government.

That means that his book is, sadly, perhaps more timely now than when it was written. By a simple extrapolation of the arguments presented herein, the recent tragedies indicate, not that "private" security provisions put us at risk of "market failures," but that a government monopoly on criminal justice costs lives.

Benson is also the author of the highly recommended _The Enterpise of Law_, which sets out probably the most thorough case to date that _law_ can exist without the institutions of a territorial State. This volume is in some ways a sequel, setting out a positive case as to how "private" criminal law works and why it is, consistently and in principle, superior to government regulation. (And allegations of "market failure" are specifically addressed.)

Check it out. The need for Benson's arguments has never been greater at any time since its publication.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant follow up to Benson's "The Enterprise of Law", June 27, 2008

By	David Kramer "kramer" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What I love about this book is that it is a must read for both Liberals and Conservatives alike. Benson shows step by step why our monopolized "justice" system works against real justice -- and why the poor are the most likely to suffer at its hands. What is most comforting to me (who wholeheartedly agrees with his findings) is his conclusion that whether or not people like it, the privatization of criminal justice is inevitably growing.