“In October 1982, the Rand Corporation published Selective Incapacitation, a sentencing proposal based on seven years of research by a team of Rand researchers under the direction of Peter Greenwood. In his report, Greenwood claims to have developed a classification scheme that would enable criminal Justice practitioners to determine which offenders should receive long, “incapacitating” prison sentences and which can be sentenced to alternative programs or safely released to the community.” (Blackmore & Welsh, 1983) Selective incapacitation is the ability to select which criminal should to be locked up due to the severity of the crime. In other words, a way of sorting through crime to put the most violent offenders away. Everyone has a least heard once how overcrowded our prison system is becoming. I believe the theory was to reduce the overcrowding in the prison system and lower the amount of money tax payers pay each year. CBS news did a report on findings of the cost of an inmate per year in 2010. CBS News stated, “A report by the organization, “The Price of Prisons,” states that the cost of incarcerating one inmate in Fiscal 2010 was $31,307 per year. “In states like Connecticut, Washington state, New York, it’s anywhere from $50,000 to $60,000,” he said.” The cost of housing an inmate in prison seems outrages. So, I agree that of selective incapacitation is a great theory to expand on and research more into depth on ways to lower inmate population and tax payer’s money. In my opinion, this concept can help allow the overcrowdness to decrease. It may not work right away or in all prison systems but, it could help lead us in the right direction.
