« Texas news report confirms race statistic disjuncture. | Main | Abstract: Blacks and Whites Behind Bars: An Emergent Analysis of Race Proportions in America's Prison System. »
February 26, 2005
Prisons: What's so important?
Prisons have a number of critical differences from the traditional institutions analyzed in the minarhcy v. anarchy debate. The institutions of police, courts, and national defense are current hot beds of libertarian debate and anarcho-capitalist theorizing. From surveying the literature it becomes apparent that the general anarchist opininion about such institutions is as follows. First, production of such services is possible without the state, and second, production of such services on the free market is preferable in terms of legitimacy and efficiency. Amongst such literature there is an apparent glossing over of prison institutions. Why have prison institutions not received adequate analysis in the theoretical fields of free market economics and anarcho-libertarianism, especially since they are more categorically integral to liberty and property than the allready interpreted institutions?
Next I will elaborate on the following topics:
I. Security v. Justice:
Police and national defense provide security. They attempt to deter crime ex ante, before the event takes place. Courts interpret crime after the event takes place but provide a service which determines when crime has and has not taken place. In this sense courts are very present oriented. Prisons are the specific ex post mechanism for justice in our modern legal system.
II. Opting-out:
Posted by djdamico at February 26, 2005 7:59 PM