Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"[A] wake-up call as to how far government has monopolized society's effort toward ensuring civil behavior." Joseph D. McNamara, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, former Chief of Police, San Jose, California, and Kansas City, Missouri
Synopsis
Traces the accelerating trend towards privatization in the criminal justice system
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.
Synopsis
Controversy about women in the military continues, yet women's relations with the military go far beyond whether they serve in the ranks.
Gender Camouflage brings together a diverse array of authors to explore the controversy surrounding women's military service, to examine the invisibility of civilian women who support the institution, and to expose the military's efforts to camouflage their support and contributions.
Contributors first consider nurses, servicewomen, military academy students, female veterans, and lesbians. The focus then shifts to military wives, women employed by the DoD, and female civilian military instructors whose work is less visible but no less essential to the institution. The book also examines the experiences of women outside of the military, such as "comfort women" near U.S. bases, women engaged in peacework, and women workers affected by military spending in the federal budget.
Analytic chapters are juxtaposed with first-person narratives by women who have actually been there, including a member of the first gender-integrated class at West Point, the first female civilian instructors at the U.S. Naval Academy, and an African American Air Force Nurse Corps veteran.
Contributors include Connie Reeves, Georgia Clark Sadler, Gwyn Kirk, and Joan Furey.
About the Author
Bruce L. Benson is Devoe Moore and Distinguished Professor of Economics at Florida State University and Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute in Oakland, California. He is author of The Enterprise of Law, as well as The Economic Autonomy of a Drug War (with David Rasmussen).