Selective incapacitation is the practice of seperating, usually through imprisonment of another form of confinement, some criminal offenders from the noncriminal members of society (Leone, 2017). It differs from strict (or general) incapacitation, a method of assigning penalties that is rigid in it assertion that (1) sentencing of convicted criminals should adhere strictly to a rulebook: (2) during the sentencing phase of a trial, it is wrong to allow input of an individual criminal’s special circumstances or to allow judicial choice of one particular penalty from among a range of penalties: (3) for each specific crime, equity mandates assignment of only one appropriate penalty (Leone, 2017). Selective incapacitation would be successful in a time when prisons populations are excessively high because it could reduce the amount of criminals who recieve prison sentences as their punishment. Some criminals who commit lesser crimes could be sentenced to a work release program or community service. Allowing only the offenders who are truly a danger to society to be placed in prison and the others to serve their time in different ways would help reduce the prison population and cut down on the threat over population brings to the prison staff.
