Incapacitation as a rationale for punishment or goal of the correctional system allows for offenders to be confined within institutions and prevented from committing additional crime within their society during the time of their sentence. The persons criminal record and type of crime committed determine if the offender will continue to commit crime. Ultimately, the incapacitation rationale focuses on the characteristics of an offender. Furthermore, Selective incapacitation has been brought to the correctional systems attention over recent years. Therefore, the correctional system is sentencing offenders who repeat certain kinds of crime to extensive prison terms.
I choose incapacitation as the most effective for reducing crime and recidivism because of its wide spread use and the historic knowledge of other failed attempts with rehabilitation, which would have been my first choice. Over the years, the criminal justice system has spent an astonishing amount of money on rehabilitation programs for offenders. the system believed that if they addressed the issue within a person that resulted in the criminal acts they could treat the offender and then they would live crime free lives. However, this was not the case. In the 1960’s the crime rate rose dramatically, as