Data were gathered from five metropolitan areas, Honolulu, Hawaii; Boston; Dade County, Fla.; Madison, Wis.; and San Francisco and included interviews with persons in criminal justice agencies and community-based programs. The first section covers the historical, legal, and administrative context for contracting, with attention to statutes, funding, and referral contracts. This discussion concludes that features of contracting that provide flexibility to the public agency present serious problems to the private program. Moreover, contracting agencies seem to feel that a high level of supervision is necessary to ensure performance by private programs. Problems often encountered in monitoring contracts were rewriting contracts to keep conformity with changes in Federal laws, determining whether services were ever delivered, and the absence of performance criteria. The report presents overviews of the referral processes used in the five cities, results from a national survey of privately operated community-based programs which provide services to criminal justice agencies, and characteristics of service organization in the five cities. It also considers service program reporting practices and neighborhood support or opposition to community programs. The discussion of costs and sources of support for private providers reviews financial arrangements, product specialization, capacity utilization, length of stay, volunteers, budgets, and mean daily costs. The final chapter explores issues in planning and research, including the need for a coordinated system and comprehensive planning, development of standard monitoring procedures, and referral methods. Tables and five references are supplied.