|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
... Introduction to Incapacitation
From the colonial period through the mid- to late 1970s, a rehabilitation-based theory of punishment for corrective measure dominated sentencing in the criminal justice system. ... The strategy of incapacitation assumes that society can “remove an offender’s capacity to commit crimes through detention or execution. ... According to Wolfgang, an ideal incapacitation policy would successfully identify and incarcerate the 6% who are the career criminals, and only that group.
The goal of modern incapacitation, as with the other crime controlling policies, is to reduce the rate of recidivism while keeping incarceration costs at a minimum. The following report will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of incapacitation based on statistical research. ... Selective Incapacitation
Since 1980, the number of adults in the correctional system, including prison, parole, and probation, has quadrupled. ... Selective incapacitation is designed to lock up only the few high rate offenders and give alternative sentences, such as parole and house arrest, to lower level offenders. ... ”
It is common belief among selective incapacitation supporters that prison populations are too high. ...
Thus, the line between selective and gross incapacitation can easily become blurry. ... Its system contained the “three strikes” aspect associated with gross incapacitation, but with a twist…or two. ... These borderline gross incapacitation laws require harsh prison terms for the possession or sale of relatively small amounts of drugs. ...
Based on the number of non-violent prisoners that the Rockefeller Drug Laws send to prison each year, the laws do not seem efficient according to the selective incapacitation model. ...
Alas, selective incapacitation may be the answer to riding society of crime, but it is not compatible with modern American society. Due to civil rights and the competitive job market, selective incapacitation cannot operate freely. ... General Incapacitation
General incapacitation is a type of incapacitation in which offenders of all levels of risk are imprisoned (Zimring, 11). ... Unlike selective incapacitation, this conservative form of incapacitation places absolutely no focus on the individual offender (Blumstein, 874). Instead, general incapacitation concentrates on the crime the offender is guilty of committing. ... Thus, having identified an individualistic focus as the weakness of rehabilitation theory, America turned with hope to general incapacitation (Zimring, 11).
General, not selective, incapacitation emerged following the reign of rehabilitation theory for two main reasons (Zimring, 11). First, both liberals and conservatives supported incapacitation as opposed to rehabilitation, and they did not consider the specifics of the new policy (Zimring, 11). The authors of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency offered a description of incapacitation that was open to interpretation, not explicit (Zimring, 11). The Council’s proposition emphasized incapacitation’s improvements over rehabilitation, not an analysis of the new theory’s strictness (Zimring, 11). What mattered was that incapacitation would not have the same problem as rehabilitation had; it would not focus on individualism (Zimring, 11). ... Therefore, they advocated an “expansionist” approach to sentencing in the criminal justice system, and adopted general incapacitation (Zimring, 11). ...
Moreover, four main factors determine the efficiency of general incapacitation on crime control: (1) Replacement (2) Prisoners’ individual crime rates (3) Career length
(4) Specialization versus switching of crime type (Blumstein, 874-875). ...
Next, the positive and negative aspects of general incapacitation are vital to this examination. The strengths of general incapacitation are: 1. No false predictions can be made; the criminal justice system has a lower risk of error than it has under selective incapacitation (Zimring, 68). ... The weaknesses of general incapacitation are more numerous: 1. ... If injustice occurs under general incapacitation, society and the criminal justice system will suffer greater harm than under injustice of selective incapacitation (Zimring, 70).
Finally, the implications of general incapacitation for the prison system, reentry issues, and racial profiling are serious. ... Chart D invokes the impacts of general incapacitation on re-entry issues, and Chart E presents racial profiling as a possible result of this policy.
In sum, general incapacitation did serve the purpose that the American public desired it to—it steered clear from the individual focus that plagued rehabilitation. ... The Studies of Edwin Zedlewski
In the 1980s, methodological questions were raised concerned with calculating the cost benefits of incapacitation. ... This is called the incapacitation effect and was the basis for Edwin Zedlewski’s studies of the cost/benefits of incarceration. The second effect is that incapacitation may serve as a deterrent to others, but Zedleski paid less attention to this effect in his studies.
Approximate Word count = 4329
Approximate Pages = 17.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|