Critical Perspectives on Selective Incapacitation and the Prediction of Dangerousness (From U.S. Sentencing Guidelines: Implications for Criminal Justice, P 136-149, 1989, Dean J. Champion, ed. -- See NCJ-121135)

• NCJ Number: 121142
• Author(s): J G Fox
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 14 pages
• Sale Source: Praeger Publishers
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter examines aspects of the Federal sentencing guidelines that correspond with the concepts of dangerousness and selective incapacitation.

Abstract

The concepts of dangerousness and incapacitation imply that crime can be controlled by identifying "dangerous" offenders who commit a disproportionate amount of crime and then incapacitating them in an institution to prevent them from committing a large volume of crime. This approach not only overestimates the ability of science to identify the "career" or "dangerous" criminal, but underestimates the impact of factors such as structural racism and social dysfunction in producing a continual supply of offenders. Also, guidelines reforms aggravate the long-term effects of incapacitation through increases in the degree of social control over conventional offenders while ignoring the need for and desirability of developing nonincarcerative alternatives to enhance offender treatment. At a minimum, there should be a better balance between incapacitation and the use of nonincarcerative alternatives. The guidelines' focus on conventional "street" crime neglects retribution to match the social harm caused by corporate and white-collar offenses.