Serious violence and dilemmas of sentencing: A comparison of three incapacitation policies

Abstract

Faced with ever increasing levels of violent crime, a number of English-based common law jurisdictions have developed twin-track sentencing policies. These provide distinctly different arrangements for so-called "ordinary" and "serious" offenders, a key feature of which is the reliance upon incapacitation as a tool for dealing with violent behaviour. Data from a cohort of New Zealand offenders who were identified and followed up before such provisions were enacted in that jurisdiction have previously been used to evaluate the incapacitative crime control effects of current serious offender provisions. In view of the failure of these measures to affect rates of violent offending within the re..