The first section reviews the historical and political context of private policing; reviews past forms of private policing; and assesses some dominant, ideological justifications for privatization. The next six chapters address substantive areas of private policing, including its structure and control, main activities, hybrid policing, self-policing by citizens, and privatization in public police forces. The final section considers the implications of the current resurgence of private policing, emphasizing that the existence of private policing calls into question the distinction between public and private authority and even the public and private sectors that are often taken for granted in social and political theory. Name and subject indexes and more than 300 references