Changing the Guard: Private Prisons and the Control of Crime

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?

Alexander Tabarrok is Senior Fellow and former Research Director at the Independent Institute, Assistant Editor of The Independent Review, Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center, Co-founder of Marginal Revolution University, and Director of the Center for Study of Public Choice and Associate Professor of Economics at 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.