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The Incapacitative Effect of Imprisonment: Some Estimates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

David F. Greenberg
David F. Greenberg*
Affiliation:
New York University
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Recent research on the functions of imprisonment has begun to provide quantitative, empirical knowledge of its rehabilitative and deterrent effects. Much less is known, however, about the incapacitative effect of imprisonment. While it has long been understood that the physical segregation of prison inmates prevents them from engaging in some criminal activity (as well as much non-criminal activity) during the period of their confinement, quantitative estimates of the size of this effect have been lacking. Leaving aside all deterrent or rehabilitative and counter-rehabilitative effects, it is of some interest to know whether the incapacitative function of imprisonment is large or small.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , Summer 1975 , pp. 541 - 580
Copyright
Copyright © 1975 The Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper, “Parole Recidivism and the Incapacitative Effects of Imprisonment,” was presented at the 1974 meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. I am grateful to Dorothy R. Jaman for information on homicide rates in the California prison system, to Stevens H. Clarke and Robert Martinson for comments on the earlier version of the paper, and to James O. Robison for encouragement and general assistance. Part of this research was funded by grants from the Field Foundation and New World Foundation.

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