Private Muscle. Outsourcing the Provision of Criminal Justice Services

Any outsourcing contract can, and must, contain enough built-in safeguards to guarantee the preservation of rights and the observance of the rule of law.

Spending on the South African criminal justice system has been increasing in real terms for a number of years. One-tenth of annual government expenditure is devoted to policing, prosecuting and incarcerating the country’s criminals. Notwithstanding the increase in public expenditure on the criminal justice system, criminal justice departments are overwhelmed by the number of cases, trials and prisoners they are expected to handle.

Increasingly, demands are placed on the criminal justice system to do more with less. This is not an impossible task, provided policy makers adopt new and innovative ways of providing public services by outsourcing selected criminal justice functions to private service providers.