By selective incapacitation, we mean the prevention of crime
through physical restraint of persons selected for confinement on
the basis of a prediction that they, and not others, will engage in
forbidden behaviour in the absence of confinement.
Selective incapacitation however is not uncontroversial.
Ethical objections have been raised to the sanction disparity
inherent to these selective policies. Others have stressed the
‘stochastic’ selectiveness that is already built-in to the judicial
system, predicting low yields of an additional focus on frequent
offenders.
Finally, researchers have pointed to the rising prison costs,
wastage of prison capacity, the costly care of the aging prison
population, possible problems in monitoring growing groups of
inmates serving long-term sentences, and the growing number of
appeals lodged by those offenders meeting the selective criteria
that may result from selective policies.