NCJ Number
135550
Date Published
Unknown
Length
34 pages
Annotation
Participants at an October 1983 retreat sponsored by the Council on Criminal Justice of The Association of the Bar of New York City examined the possible advantages and disadvantages of selective incapacitation, a policy of incarcerating career criminals for lengthy periods.
Abstract
Participants considered social science research indicating that a small proportion of offenders commit a large proportion of crimes and that it is possible to distinguish the high-rate serious offenders from the low-rate offenders on the basis of individual characteristics. They noted that concepts of selective incapacitation are reflected in part in current career criminal prosecution programs, in current sentencing, and in special felony offender laws. Nevertheless, participants expressed much skepticism about the ability of social scientists to identify future recidivists accurately. They also voiced concerns about the appropriateness of using employment history and juvenile records in making decisions regarding selective incapacitation, about the potential rate of inaccurate identifications of high-risk offenders, and about policies regarding low-rate violent offenders and high-rate nonviolent offenders. They concluded that the attractiveness of selective incapacitation varies with the availability of resources in that it has been advocated as a way of dealing with funding limitations. Footnotes and list of members of the Council on Criminal Justice