To Serve and Protect (book)

First edition (publ. NYU Press)

To Serve and Protect: Privatization and Community in Criminal Justice is a 1998 book by Bruce L. Benson about private policing, private prosecution, and other market-based methods of providing criminal justice. Benson traces the history of government's escalating involvement in criminal justice over the past centuries in the United Kingdom and in the United States, and argues that it has resulted in overpriced, low-quality service that does not adequately address the needs of communities and crime victims. He argues for parole bonds, restorative justice, shifting toward a criminal justice system that resembles the civil tort system, and other reforms.