3 - Incapacitation

Question 1

What does incapacitation involve?

Answer 1

Incapacitation involves removing the capacity to commit future crimes by locking people up. It doesn’t try to change people – just to hold them until they are believed to be “safe” enough

This is mostly directed at high risk offenders who are predicted as being at risk of committing future harms.

Question 2

How are offenders identified?

Answer 2

Offenders are identified based upon past behaviour and personality traits, and high risk offenders are given disproportionately long sentences to prevent future offending.

Question 3

Criticisms of Incapacitation

Answer 3

May simply lead to postponement of wrongdoings until release

Imprisoned offenders may continue to control criminal activities on the outside

People learn new crimes

On the outside, families suffer

Offenders prevented from doing good deeds/repairing harms in the community.

Removing persistent offenders limited impact – always replacements
Golash (2005) argues that the cost of locking up enough criminals to make a real difference is simply beyond our country’s fiscal capabilities.

Mathieson (2006) -don’t have ability to accurately predict who will commit serious offences in the future.
Braithwaite and Petit (1990) claim the best prediction techniques are wrong at least twice as often as they are right whilst
Golash (2005) estimates predictions are generally wrong eight times out of nine.