Incapacitation is the strategy deployed by the society to isolate the criminals from the society to minimize their crime rates and effects on the community. This is a strategy that is employed to protect members of the community from offenders who refuse follow laws underlined. Incapacitation depends upon an individual’s crime rate and offenses committed. Reports on surveys conducted on prison inmates have revealed that only small percentage of prisoners reported committing any criminal offense. Selective incapacitation strategy was hence to target career criminals who were given long term sentences. The advantage associated with this approach is that criminal offenses can be minimized without increasing populations in the prisons. Greenwood’s proposal on the use of selective incapacitation involves a critical role in the identification of high-rate offenders. It includes prediction of the offenders who are likely to engage in a lot of criminal activities if allowed to stay within the society.
According to the article, after the construction of risk scale, Greenwood came up with six possible strategies involving incapacitation which included policies on collective incapacitation approach that involved issues about sentencing and policies that promoted changes in the experience of offenders while in jail. Nonetheless, several ethical considerations came up that reflected on the Rand sentencing criteria and model. If criminals scored low on prediction scale, they were bound to receiving shorter sentences compared to high-risk offenders. Even though Greenwood’s selective approach was based on Rand innate model, Rand model received much criticism. The inmate reports helped in the estimation and prediction of criminal offenses that could be reduced by sentencing the offenders. Criticism of Greenwood’s model was in its failure to take into consideration the period at which illegal activities started to diminish. Critics also analyzed the prediction scale which identified career criminals of a high score. The criticism was based on the seven items formulated by Greenwood with the hope that they could accurately predict the levels of the offenders and possible future crimes. The selective incapacitation became the most appealing strategy since it involved crime reduction thus minimizing threats to the society. Greenwood’s sentencing approach provided policy systems an alternative option to collective incapacitation that requires more construction of prisons.
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In my opinion, the government has to put in place an efficient criminal justice system that will help in dealing with high rate offenders in the society. Individuals in the society have to be on the look of the criminals who engage in illegal activities within the community and report them to law makers. By doing so, they will be able to minimize and deal with the threats and theft activities associated with the law breakers in the society. Selective incapacitation should be enhanced by both the government and the society. This will help in the rehabilitation of the offenders who are unable to abide by the rules and laws of the society and country at large. Trained psychologists should be hired by the criminal justice bodies to help in conducting interviews to the criminals. The use of professionals or experts will assist in the provision of accurate predictions that is needed in the identification of individuals who have the possibility of posing a threat to the society.
The Greenwood’s theoretical approaches should also be incorporated to ensure quality rehabilitation process. The proposals will result in a high percentage of crime reduction without overburdening the justice systems. Ethical issues should be considered when executing justice to the criminal offenders. The validity scale that predicts different levels of crimes should include responses that measure the alleged offenses more precisely and accurately. Efforts to enhance and improve information accuracy on high-risk criminals should be more focused on the allegation made and some crimes committed.
