The Development of the Private Sector of the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

One of the more interesting questions that political scientists are likely to overlook in their analyses of public policy, the delivery of services, etc., is the continually changing mix of public and private provision of such policies and services. Present concern with the criminal justice system, in general, and the police in particular, is no exception. Political scientists are interested in questions of police organization, public accountability of police activity, implications of greater involvement in local police activity by state and federal agencies, professionalization of local police officers, etc. But we have tended to concentrate on the political-governmental provision of police services and to ignore both the traditional and the contemporary role of private police as a very important part of the total panoply of police activities in American society.