Third Rationale For Sentencing Analysis

The third rationale for sentencing is incapacitation, which focuses on isolating the offender from others once society has deemed the offender as dangerous and unable to live amongst the community. The understanding behind this objective is that, criminals should be isolated or otherwise confined in order to prevent them from re-offending and committing further harm to society. It is evident that if the offender is executed or imprisoned for life, he or she cannot commit future crimes against other individuals in society. However, the idea behind incapacitation lies in society’s fear that the offender may re-offend. But as Melanie Reid argues, “who can truly judge the hearts and reliably predict future behavior with crystal ball clarity,

However, instead of focusing on the choices of the individual offender, incapacitation is more concerned with the protection of society. Unlike deterrence theory or rehabilitation, incapacitation does not rest on a particular theory of human nature.” Reducing opportunities for crime shifts the focus from the motivation or causes of the criminal behavior to the situations that are conducive to crime. Thus incapacitation has less to do with attempts to alter the criminal’s internal motivations or the societally induced circumstances that allegedly cause her/his criminal conduct than with removing the criminal from potential situations of opportunity for

This sentencing goal reflects a belief that crime is committed due to situations or events that have occurred in the individual’s life, such as an impoverished living situation, a substance abuse addiction, a lack of education or work, or an abusive home life. Rehabilitation assumes that trying to change the external circumstances of an individual’s criminal conduct makes the offender less likely to re-offend in the future. The rehabilitative efficacy of Canada’s criminal justice system requires some analysis in that if the system is not whole-heartedly committed to the goal, it will be impossible to create and effectively implement a truly rehabilitative correctional regime. Although total rehabilitation may not be possible, it should nonetheless be our most important and favored goal of punishment. Rehabilitation is clearly on the minds of legislators worldwide, however whether significant funds are put aside to create a lasting rehabilitative impact is unclear. Rehabilitation focuses on the hope that offenders can be “reformed” or “changed for the better” while being punished so that the offender may re-integrate with the rest of society with the hopes that he or she does not re-offend. Under this theory, various programs are offered to the offender, such as drug, alcohol or sex offender treatment or educational programs such as job