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Preferred term

selective incapacitation  

Definition

  • Selective incapacitation is the practice of separating, usually through imprisonment or another form of confinement, some criminal offenders from the noncriminal members of society. It differs from strict (or general) incapacitation, a method of assigning penalties that is rigid in its 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. [Source: Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment; Selective Incapacitation]

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URI

https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/selective_incapacitation

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