After providing an up-to-date overview of the development of private sector involvement in penal practice in the United Kingdom, North America, Europe and Australia, the authors go on to describe the first two years in the life of Wolds Remand Prison - the first private prison in Britain.

They look at the daily life for remand prisoners, assess the duties and morale of staff and compare the workings of Wolds to a new local prison in the public sector. The authors conclude by discussing some of the practical and theoretical issues to have emerged from contracting out, ethical issues surrounding the whole privatization debate and implications for the future of the prison system and penal policy.

`It provides a useful introduction to the evolution of private prisons in the UK and an in-depth evaluation of how one operates....The main attraction of this book is the research into the Wolds and the comparison with public prisons. These chapters provide a wealth of new information on the operation of private prisons′ - International Journal of Police Science & Management

Professor Adrian James is Emeritus Professor of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield.  Alison Liebling is a criminologist at the University of Cambridge and the director of the Institute of Criminology’s Prisons Research Centre. Her main interests lie in the changing form and effects of imprisonment, the role of values in criminal justice, and the role of safety, trust, and fairness in shaping the prison experience. Her program of research has measured the moral quality of prison life, the effectiveness of suicide prevention strategies in prison, and values, practices, and outcomes in public and private sector corrections. Her most recent research is on prison privatization and staff–prisoner relationships and prisoner social organization in high security prisons.