Estimating the incapacitation effect among first-time incarcerated offenders
| Published date | 01 November 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14773708241249808 |
| Author | Enes Al Weswasi |
| Date | 01 November 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Estimating the incapacitation
effect among first-time
incarcerated offenders
Enes Al Weswasi
Stockholm University, Sweden
Abstract
Objectives: To estimate how many offenses are averted through the incapacitation of first-time
incarcerated offenders with sentences of two years or less. Methods: The counterfactual chal-
lenge of estimating criminal acts that would have been committed had the offender not been incar-
cerated is approached utilizing a matching design. Data comprise all offenders convicted in Sweden
in 2018, matched on a vector of time-stable and time-varying covariates drawn from an extensive
set of Swedish registers. Each incarcerated offender is matched to a nonincarcerated offender
whose offending frequency is used to infer the incapacitation effect. Full sample estimates are pro-
vided as well as subgroup estimates for males, females, and various risk groups. Results: The
annual incapacitation effect for first-time incarcerated offenders is estimated to be 0.53 when mea-
sured as the number of averted convictions and 1.14 when measured as the number of averted
offenses that would have resulted in a conviction. For males, the annual number of convictions
averted through incapacitation is 0.51, and for females 0.37. For the highest risk group, the annual
number of averted convictions is 1.22, and the number of averted offenses resulting in conviction
is 2.55. For offenders in the low-to-medium risk groups, the corresponding figures are approxi-
mately 0.31 averted convictions and approximately 0.68 averted offenses. Conclusion: For
first-time incarcerated offenders, the incapacitation effect is modest and the heterogeneous effects
found across different risk groups warrant considering whether the crime-preventive effect is suf-
ficiently large for low-risk inmates and whether noncustodial sanctions might constitute an alter-
native that would ease overcrowding without producing any considerable risk for costs in termsof
recidivism.
Keywords
Incapacitation effect, incarceration, propensity score matching, recidivism
Corresponding author:
Enes Al Weswasi, Department of Criminology, Stockholm University, Universitetsvägen 10 C, 114 18,
Stockholm, Sweden.
Email: enes.al.weswasi@criminology.su.se
Article
European Journal of Criminology
2024, Vol. 21(6) 799–829
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14773708241249808
journals.sagepub.com/home/euc
Introduction
In theory, the capacity of prisons to control crime is caused by their deterrent effect,
which comes in the form of general or specific deterrence (Nagin, 1978). Their
crime-reducing effect, however, also comes from physically incapacitating offenders
(Zimring and Hawkins, 1995). Knowledge of the specific deterrent effects of prisons is
increasing, and has according to some reached a level that makes it safe to say that the
failure of custodial sanctions to reduce postrelease recidivism is now a “criminological
fact”(Petrich et al., 2021). In a similar vein, recent studies that have specifically exam-
ined the association between incarceration length and recidivism have in general found a
null effect (Al Weswasi et al., 2022; Berger and Scheidegger, 2021). Since numerous
studies have now dismissed the specific deterrent effect of imprisonment, an argument
could nonetheless be made that although incarceration may not deter crime, it may at
least avert crime through incapacitation. This gives rise to the question of how large
this crime-control effect might be, and whether it is sufficiently large to merit the
increased use of incarceration.
While the overall imprisonment rate in both Europe (Aebi et al., 2022) and the United
States (Carson, 2022) has fallen steadily since the early 2010s, the trend in Sweden has
been the reverse. From the 1990s, the use of incarceration in Sweden declined until the
mid-2010s but has since increased both in terms of average sentence length and the
number of offenders sentenced to prison (Kriminalvården, 2021). In recent times, and
in part due to a recent increase in gang-related violence, what was previously a partisan
issue, with right-leaning parties pushing for tough-on-crime policies, has become a bipar-
tisan issue, with parties on both sides of the political divide arguing for harsher sentences
(Tham, 2022). As a result of the increasing prison population, the occupancy rate in
Swedish prisons was 109% in 2021, and many inmates now have to share cells designed
for single occupancy (Kriminalvården, 2021). Overcrowding has led the Swedish Prison
and Probation Service (Kriminalvården) to state that they are now unable to ensure that
they can operate “in a safe, humane and efficient manner”(Kriminalvården, 2019). As a
consequence, violence or threats against staff and between inmates have increased over
recent years. The long-term consequences of the policy shift toward harsher sentencing
can also be observed in the annual forecasts made by the Swedish prison and probation
service regarding future inmate numbers. In 2017, the number of inmates was 4148 and
the current prediction for 2030 is that this number will have increased to 7430
(Kriminalvården, 2022).
1
A substantial part of this increase is due to the increased use
of incarceration for young adults in combination with tougher rules on early parole
release. This increased use of incarceration directs a spotlight on the use of imprisonment
as a means of controlling crime and on the issue of the size of such a crime-control effect.
While the specific deterrent effect of incarceration is increasingly well understood, the
magnitude of possible incapacitation effects is not as well-known as a result of methodo-
logical and contextual considerations.
The present study aims therefore to address the question of how many offenses are
averted through the incapacitation of first-time incarcerated offenders with sentences of
two years or less. In addition to aggregate estimates of the number of offenses averted
via incapacitation, the study also explores effects by sex and risk group in order to
800 European Journal of Criminology 21(6)
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