I believe that a restitution based system of justice (ala Randy Barnett) is the ideal to preserve both individual liberty and to efficiently protect property rights. One major logistical issue that remains for such a system to be feasible is: how do victims extract the debt owed to them from criminals who are unwilling to work or cooperate?
The first solace to this problem is the assumption that the population of these sorts of criminals will be small (compared to how many people are incarcerated under today’s justice system). The problem is not so intimidating when you think of it in these terms. The logistical question is nothing more than how to motivate ordinarily unwilling inmates to be productive in terms that the prison administrators could profit off of. The following news stories are what I would consider to be great examples of market-based prison management techniques that seem to have had great success.
1. Tattoo parlors in Canadian prisons.
2. Italian women’s prison and German prison begin high fashion lines.
3. Maine State Prison novelties shop.