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Incapacitation(Penology)
Legislative Assembly of different country
Long title Control the crime rate by imprisoning criminals
Territorial extent	Whole of wrold
Enacted by	Legislative Assembly of different country
Introduced by	legislature
Status: In force

Incapacitation(Penology)

Penology

Penology, also known as Penal Science, is a branch of criminology that is related to the philosophy and practice of society in an effort to curb criminal activity. As the term indicates, criminal law has passed and in most cases still represents a policy of punishing a perpetrator; but it can be reasonably extended to cover other non-punishment aimed at curing or recovering offender Sexual policies, such as probation, medical care and education. The main purpose of criminal law is to reveal the ethical basis of punishment, as well as the motivation and purpose of society to implement punishment; to conduct comparative research through historical and national criminal laws and procedures; and in the end, to evaluate the social consequences of policies that take effect at a specific time . Therefore, criminal jurisprudence represents a group of studies, some of which have a purpose and moral or social justification for punishment that originated in the distant past, while others are related to the broader social significance of the system.

Incapacitation

Incapacitation means that the freedoms that individuals enjoy in society are restricted to varying degrees. In the criminal justice system, incapacitation is a response to criminals. This kind of behavior will prevent criminals from committing crimes in the future to a certain extent, because they are restricted from entering the public and restrained by their own behavior. So incapacitation can only try to prevent criminals from continuing to commit crimes within the limited time, but it cannot correct the crimes that criminals have committed Incapacitation is a reasonable behavior, because if its overall consequences are beneficial to most people, then this behavior is acceptable. Therefore, it is reasonable and acceptable to impose some punishment and pain on criminals to prevent criminals from continuing to harm society. Its most serious form is the death penalty. The death penalty is more used to deter criminals, but it is still controversial whether this has played a role in potential offenders.

Selective incapacitation

Selective incapacitation is one of the incapacitation systems. In this sentencing policy, the government will sentence long-term imprisonment after identifying dangerous offenders. At the same time, it will sentence probation or bail to offenders who are not dangerous. Those who support this policy believe that it is not necessary to imprison non-dangerous criminals, and propose to increase the punishment for those criminals who will cause harm to society after they are released. Supporters are convinced that this will greatly reduce the crime rate and will allow them to have a safe community. But the consequences are often unsatisfactory. The consequence of selective incompetence is that it does not reduce the crime rate or the number of prisons. Selective incompetence makes non-dangerous criminals no longer fear punishment and continue to commit crimes.

A selective disability policy system may be more effective in reducing crime. Such policies attempt to identify those criminals who may commit many serious crimes in the future and impose long-term prison sentences. Nevertheless, there are many different legal, ethical, and practical difficulties in determining who should be selectively incapacitated, and estimates of future illegal risks are also inaccurate.

The surest indicator of the likelihood of future violations is the previous criminal history. However, it takes time to accumulate lengthy criminal records. Criminal occupation studies have shown that with the passage of time and with age, the criminal activity of most criminals has decreased. This indicates that in most criminal occupations, the ideal time to effectively incapacitate offenders are likely hard to determine in advance.

Three-strike Policy

In the United States in the 1990s, the three-strike policy was a very influential policy. The policy stipulates that if a criminal has committed one or two serious crimes before, he will be sentenced to life imprisonment, which means that the criminal is sentenced to a high penalty. Jerry Williams is a frequently mentioned example. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1995 only for stealing a piece of pizza.

Nearly half of the prisoners are now serving for non-violent crimes. Criminologists agree that heavy sentences such as life imprisonment for nonviolent offenders do not help improve public safety at all, and at the same time increase the government's budget for prisons. In 2012, the Three Strikes Reform Act passed without any suspense in California. This proposal eliminates life imprisonment for non-violent and non-serious criminals. In the next eight months, over 1,000 prisoners were released. This proposal has saved California taxpayers a lot of money.

Method

The main method is to imprison criminals who cause harm to the public for a long time and thus keep them away from this society. His focus is to weaken or eliminate the ability of criminals to commit crimes again by imprisoning them. In the prison system, different criminals receive different conditions of imprisonment so that criminals gradually lose the ability to re-offend.

Supervision of prisoners is also a means of parole and probation. This approach allows criminals to reintegrate into society and family, but this is a double-edged sword, which is likely to cause criminals to reoffend if they enter society again. Therefore, in the supervision system, some serious offenders and sex offenders are absolutely not allowed to be released on parole or probation.

In some areas, the community will use some cruel punishment to replace prisoners in prison, such as dismemberment or corporal punishment. For example, in some countries in Asia and the Middle East.

Effects

Although  implementation of incapacitation  has helped to control the crime rate to a certain extent, the negative impact it has brought to the government is inevitable. This is mainly reflected in the increasing cost of imprisonment, which gradually increases the government's financial pressure. In the United States between 1960 and 2010, its imprisonment costs increased by 240%, which included the cost of operating prisons and the rehabilitation of criminals. At the same time, the average per capita expenditure of the judiciary and the police increased by 60%. This undoubtedly shows that as the prison population continues to increase, different departments have paid a heavy price.

Imprisoning prisoners may not prevent them from rejoining crimes about the community. According to a study of 360 prisoners in a British prison, 25% of the prisoners said that the current imprisonment would not have a significant effect on their re-offending.

Examples

Australia

In the ten years from 1995 to 2004, according to the statistics of the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2004, the Australian prison population increased by more than 39%. In 2005, more than 25,000 people were held in Australian prisons every day. The cost of putting so many people in jail is huge. According to statistics from the Productivity Commission, in the last financial year, Australia is recurring imprisonment costs exceeded $ 1.6 billion, or approximately $ 92 per person per year. Prisons are not likely to be the most usual criminal sanctions. However, they are undoubtedly the most expensive which is also the reason that NSW courts are increasingly turning to deal with persistent and serious crimes.

Amazingly, there are few studies on the impact of prisons on crime in Australia which is very unfortunate. Imprisonment may not be a perfect method for controlling crime, but it is still an important tool.

The United States

Although the United States accounts for only 5% of the world's population, it has nearly 25% of prisoners, or about 2.2 million people.

Over the last 40 years, the United States has implemented strict criminal policies that have brought prisons and prisons to the breaking point. Among them are mainly poor, uneducated people of color, and about half of them stand from mental health problems. The comprehensive report of the National Research Council, written by the Interdisciplinary Committee of Researchers, concluded that this shocking reality has caused damage to American society in many ways. The report found that one out of every 100 American adults is imprisoned, with a per capita rate five to ten times that of Western Europe or other democratic countries. Although the trend has slowed between 2006 to 2011, most of the states reduced the prison population. However, in 2012, the United States was still the world's largest number of imprisoned countries.

Hanni who is a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz said: "No other country in the world imprisoned its citizens like we did in the United States."

Data from the Pew State Research Center show that the vigorous development of prisons also means investing more resources in corrections-the annual cost for state and federal prisons is about $ 60 billion, up from $ 12 billion 20 years ago. Dr. Juny Downey, a professor of psychology at George Mason University who studies the rehabilitation of offenders, said: "Our imprisonment policy is costly, has relatively few benefits, and has caused many disadvantages to our economy, family and community structure influences. She said: "Being the country with the highest rate of imprisonment in the world is indeed something we need to re-examine." "It's not that we have more criminals than anywhere else in the world; we are just doing different things with them."

Controversies

The incapacitation is the same as investment. Long term incarceration is the investment of society which reorganizes the distribution of prisoners but both will bring risks. Thus, the crime rate will increase by postpone recidivism of prisoners.  One of the controversies about incapacitation is the importance of risk prediction is greater than the power of the defendant. One of the incapacitation theories is that pre-trial detention of the accused has not yet been convicted, but pre-trial detention is not directly related to protecting the public and avoiding such dangerous behaviors from happening again.

Another controversy is that after the offender is released from prison, the offender's danger has not been eliminated and there may be an enormous change in the offender ’s family or work during the time of imprisonment. So these will cause the criminal to possibly commit another crime. During the time that criminals are in captivity, parents or children of a large number of criminals are suffering from severe economic instability and pressure. But through intervention and contact with imprisoned criminals will greatly help their children's growth and public safety.

Incapacitation has always been controversial, and opponents think that this way is too harsh for criminals. In a sense, this approach is unfair to criminals, and criminals also have room for transformation, but the incapacitation system did not consider it.

References

Category:Imprisonment and detention Category:Sentencing (law)