8.3: Incapacitation

Rooted in the concept of banishing individuals from society, incapacitation is the removal of an individual from society for a set amount of time so they cannot commit crimes.

In the 1970s, punishment became much more of a political topic in the United States, and perceptions of the fear of crime became important. Lawmakers, politicians, and others began to campaign on their toughness on crime, using the fear of crime and criminals to benefit their agendas to impose punitive prison sentences. This is considered collective incapacitation, or the incarceration of large groups of individuals to remove their ability to commit crimes for a set amount of time in the future.

Since this time, and exacerbated in the 1980s and 1990s, there has been an increasing use of punishment by prison sentences. For instance, we saw a 500% increase in the prison population between 1980 and 2020 (Ghandnoosh, 2022). The politicization of punishment increased the overall incarcerated population in two ways. First, by allowing decision makers more discretion, as a society, we have gotten tougher on crime. In turn, more people are now being sentenced to prison, and they may have gone to specialized probation or community-sanction alternatives otherwise. Second, these same attitudes have led to harsher and lengthier punishments for certain crimes. Individuals are being sent away for longer sentences, which has caused the intake-to-release ratio to change and created enormous buildups of the prison population.

The incapacitative ideology followed this design for several decades, but in the early 1990s, three-strike policies were implemented that would target individuals more specifically based on prior offenses or crimes committed. These selective incapacitation policies would incarcerate an individual for greater lengths of time if they had prior offenses. These policies incarcerated certain individuals for longer periods than others, even when they had committed the same crime. Thus, it removed their individual ability to commit crimes in society for greater periods of time as they were incarcerated.

There are mixed feelings about selective and collective incapacitation. Policymakers promote incapacitation by giving examples of locking certain individuals away to help calm the fear of crime. Others, like Blokland and Nieuwbeerta (2007), have stated that there is little evidence to suggest that this solves the problem. Selective incapacitation has evolved to include tighter crime control strategies that target individuals who repeat the same offenses. Others opt for tougher community supervision options to keep individuals under supervision longer.

Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is the ideology of helping individuals who have committed crimes change their behavior through interventions, treatment, therapy, education, and training to help them reenter society.

Rehabilitation has taken different forms in the United States. At one time, society considered people who committed crimes to be out of touch with God. One of America’s earliest prisons was designed to enhance incarcerated individuals’ connection with God. The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, opened in 1829 and included outside reflection yards so individuals could look up to God for penance.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): For additional information about this prison, see The Eastern State Penitentiary

Reformatories were another type of correctional facility but with a focus on rehabilitation. The reform movement tried to rehabilitate the individual through more humane treatment, including basic education, religious services, work experience, and general reform efforts. This was done to reform individuals, thus allowing them to come back to society. The Elmira Reformatory in Elmira, New York, seen below, was one of the earliest efforts of the reform ideal, and many prisons built in the United States were based on this reformatory.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): The Elmira Reformatory

Rehabilitation has also included medical approaches. Incarcerated individuals were viewed as sick and in need of medical treatment. This medical approach, while less common, is still used in some areas today. As of November 2021, in the United States, six states and one territory included the use of testosterone-inhibiting medications as a treatment for individuals convicted of sex offenses being considered for early release.

Rehabilitation as an ideology has its critics. Many see it as being soft on individuals who have been convicted of committing crimes. There are several examples that suggest rehabilitation is ineffective in some cases. For example, in 1974, Robert Martinson reviewed more than 230 programs and concluded that “With few and isolated exceptions, the rehabilitative efforts that have been undertaken so far have had no appreciable effect on recidivism” (Martinson, 1974). This report caused many policymakers to turn to more punitive ideologies. However, it did prompt some researchers to ask more detailed questions about why rehabilitation was not working, including critical questions about the measurement of outcomes, the evaluation of specific rehabilitative programs, and attempts to understand outcomes for individuals involved in the justice system. The answers to these questions became the principles of effective intervention that are the cornerstone of modern rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation is the only one of the four main ideologies that most comprehensively attempts to address the current goals of corrections: punishing the offender, protecting society, and rehabilitating the offender. Certainly, all four ideologies address the first two goals: punishment and societal protection. However, the goal of rehabilitating the offender is not addressed in retribution, deterrence, or incapacitation. But ignoring rehabilitation comes at a cost. About 95 percent of people released from prison had little or no rehabilitative support while incarcerated (Bureau of Justice, 2004). And yet there is the expectation that individuals leaving prisons will not commit crimes in the future.

Understanding Risk and Needs in Rehabilitation

Today’s rehabilitative efforts still carry punishment and societal protection as goals, but the focus of rehabilitation is on changing individuals’ behaviors so that they do not recidivate. To change behavior, corrections professionals need to understand what causes some individuals to be at risk for offending and what causes some individuals to be at a higher risk for offending than others. Risk factors include items like prior criminal history, antisocial attitudes, antisocial or pro-criminal friends, a lack of education, family or marital problems, a lack of job stability, substance abuse, and personality characteristics like mental health issues and antisocial personality.

While we cannot change the number of prior offenses someone already has, all other items can be addressed. These are considered as criminogenic needs. Criminogenic needs are items that, when changed, can lower an individual’s risk of offending. This is a core component of Paul Gendreau’s principles of effective intervention and is at the heart of most modern effective rehabilitation programs (1996). Thousands of individuals have been assessed on these items, which have helped to develop evidence-based rehabilitation practices. When these criminogenic needs are addressed, higher-risk individuals demonstrate positive reductions in their risk of offending.

Cognitive behavioral therapy has been noted as one of the most effective approaches to changing criminogenic needs. It is based on the concept that behaviors can be changed by changing the thinking patterns behind them or before they are exhibited. Criminal behavior is based on cognition, values, and beliefs that are learned through the interactions and observations of others. This is important when rehabilitating individuals from prison, where antisocial ideas, peers, values, and beliefs may dominate the institution.