Changing the Guard is an authoritative book on 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 authority. Has it? This book 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 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?