Traditional views of incapacitation as a crime control strategy rely fundamentally on behavioral prediction. Most attempts at predicting offenders' behaviors have relied on simple dichotomous dependent variables. Recent attention to components of the "criminal career," such as the rate of offending and the nature and potential patterning of offending behavior, could provide significant advantage to the prediction problem while informing debates about incapacitation strategies. W e examine this possibility in the context of a study of some 6,000 offenders followed for more than 25 years. Little predictive advantage is realized by attention to more sophisticated behavioral outcome criteria. In agreement with other studies, we observe little support for hypotheses concerning the pattern of careers with respect to offense behaviors. The utility of incapacitation as a crime control strategy seems to be constrained by the limits imposed by predictive validity and perhaps by the nature of the criminal career.
Prison sentences set by a paroling authority vary, as expected, with characteristics of the offenders. Is part of the variation in sentences, however, associated not with the offenders but with the persons responsible for the decisions? Comparisons of sentences set by various parole board members may be misleading if differences in the types of offenders con cerned are not taken into account. If an experimental study of the question with adequate controls for "types of offenders" is not feasible, statistical controls might be substituted. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a method for com paring decisions by parole board members. Study of the sentences of 2,053 men paroled in one year, analyzed according to six parole board members who participated in the hearing, demon strated the need for the study suggested. The groups of offenders were not directly comparable. When relevant characteristics of the offenders were taken into account, it was found that the decision-makers tended to make similar decisions.
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