14 - The Incapacitative Effect of Sanctions

Summary

within the criminological context, incapacitation refers to any number of constraints that (typically physically) limit an individual's ability to commit crime. Such constraints include those as minor as probation and as major as capital punishment. In the current study, incapacitation will be narrowly defined as the effect of actual incarceration. Physical seclusion from the surrounding world prevents the inmate from committing offenses against the general public.

Many studies of the incapacitative effect of sanctions have been performed, most notably in the United States. U.S. research on criminal careers largely stems from an interest in identifying and predicting high-rate criminal activity in the hope that crime can be reduced by giving these offenders more severe sentences (see, for example, Blumstein, 1983; Shinnar and Shinnar, 1975; Klein and Caggiano, 1986).

This is not the basis for the present study. However, given the research attention that incapacitation has generated over the past decade, it seems fitting that such issues be examined here. Furthermore, although the Nordic countries have previously expressed political skepticism in, and dissociated themselves from, the incapacitation concept, changes in opinion can be sensed in the wind. Though lacking empirical documentation, a few Nordic researchers have even pointed to the possibility of achieving significant preventive effects through incapacitation.

Results from the current study may stimulate further discussion of crime prevention through the incapacitation of certain offenders. It is therefore imperative to perform an empirical examination of the potential costs and benefits of such policies.