A recent book on criminal justice by Bruce Benson, an economist at Florida State University, provides nearly encyclopedic coverage of private techniques in criminal justice and redirects attention from social engineering goals like deterrence toward justice and individual rights and responsibilities.

Benson says custom and law must internalize (privatize) more benefits for crime suppressers and make crime producers bear more of the costs they impose on victims, including taxpayers.

• Crime rates have declined in the '90s, yet stubbornly remain three times higher than thirty years ago.

• Prisons and jails now house nearly two million inmates, almost double that of ten years ago, and another four million are under supervision of the justice system outside of jails.

• The nation is building another thousand-bed prison each week.

• Over the last three decades, the share of gross domestic product spent by the public sector on crime control has tripled and now tops $100 billion annually.

• Private sector spending to combat crime in the United States exceeds an estimated $300 billion a year.

Benson's premise is that justice for victims should be the goal of any justice system. His historical research shows that offenses like murder and robbery were once treated as private torts, with economic compensation as the primary remedy.

• With the prospect of recovering damages, victims had a greater incentive to report a crime, whereas today victims only report about 40 percent.

• Restitution rights were transferable, thereby promoting efficiency in apprehension and liability.

• Primary reliance on the state to protect property rights and control criminals is less than two centuries old, as victims' property rights to restitution were collectivized.

Benson's historical research subverts the doctrine that a justice system is a nonexcludable "public good" that only governments can provide.

Source: Morgan O. Reynolds (Director of the Criminal Justice Center, NCPA), "Bruce L. Benson, To serve and protect: Privatization and community in criminal justice. An Independent Institute Book. Foreword by Marvin E. Wolfgang. New York: New York University Press, 1998. Xxviii + 372 pages. $37.50 (cloth)," book review, Public Choice, January 2000.