How large is the incapacitation effect? In Wilson's narrative (Chapter 5), he mentions that 2.4 million offenders are currently incarcerated / incapacitated in American prisons. The theory of incarceration, Wilson quotes Cullen and Johnson, is "When in doubt, America incarcerates" but "other nations tend not to do so." And even though the United States is a far smaller country than China in terms of population, the U.S. incarcerates "roughly 750,000 more individuals than China," and about 1.5 million more than Russia does. In broad terms, the U.S. has only 5% of the population of the world but the U.S. has locked up 25% of the 9 million individuals that are in prisons worldwide.

Due to this imbalance of imprisoned offenders, America should use imprisonment "more judiciously," Wilson explains. Moreover, the policy in place simply takes criminals off the street so they cannot victimize innocent people, but the policy doesn't change offenders, it just places them in prisons. In other words, stop crime by putting offenders where they can't commit crimes. According to Wilson's narrative, the answer to this...

Not only are 2.4 million criminals in prison at this time, 4.2 million offenders are on probation -- and 20% of those on probation were convicted of a violent crime. About 50% of those 4.2 million offenders on probation are felons that had good lawyers or otherwise we able to get their charges reduced by plea bargaining.
In conclusion it is clear that far too many prisoners are clogging up cells that should be available for the 6% (or is it 18%) of repeat criminals that commit the great majority of the crimes in America. The system is broken, and because elected officials have taken a hard line on crime -- to garner votes from their constituencies -- it is not likely the system will be fixed or that social justice will be achieved anytime soon. "False positives" are helping to skew the system, according to Wilson. Offenders that are projected to become recidivists, but who are not becoming recidivists, are proving the system of justice is flawed.

Works Cited

Wilson, James…