Previous research found that existing incarceration policies had only a modest incapacitative effect, and thus achieve only a modest effect on the crime rate. In this study, five separate official record sets were used to construct a picture of the arrest and incarceration experiences of a sample of burglars and armed robbers arrested in New Orleans during the years 1973-1986. The data include dates of both jail and penitentiary incarceration and local, State, and national arrest information. For juveniles, dates of incarceration in the State's juvenile prison system are included. The assessment focused on measurement of the collective incapacitation effect of the entire criminal justice system on these offenders and the contributions of different forms of incarceration and racial factors to the overall incapacitative effect. Finally, a preliminary analysis was made of the ways in which the criminal justice system itself adjusts its response to the offender's level of criminal activity, and the effects of these adjustments on the collective incapacitation effect. Results indicate that collective incapacitation effects exceed those reported in other empirically-based estimates using official statistics, and that the criminal justice system already selectively incarcerates offenders. Incapacitation through incarceration is most effective for those aged 20-40 and most ineffective for juveniles. Armed robbers are better incapacitated than burglars, and blacks better than whites. There was no evidence of crime type specialization. 15 bibliography references, 16 tables.
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