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Capacity of the criminal justice system to prevent crime

Criminal Justice System action to prevent crime is a tertiary level prevention measure. It is conventionally seen as acting through deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation, and directly through effects on socialisation.

Title: Capacity of the criminal justice system to prevent crime
Authors: Australian Institute of Criminology
Series: AICrime Reduction Matters, Number 6
Number of pages: 1
Date published: July 2003

Recent interventions for reducing crime through the courts and prison systems can be classified into six categories:

• Incapacitation
  Depriving offender of capacity to commit crimes usually through detention in prison.

• Deterrence
  Punishment so repugnant that it will deter offenders or others to commit crime in future.

• Rehabilitation
  Treatment aimed at changing individual so further behaviour will not be repeated.

• Community restraints
  Supervision of offenders in community to reduce capacity for criminal activity.

• Structure, Discipline and challenge
  Programs using mental or physical experiences to change individual's behaviour in a positive way.

• Combining rehabilitation and constraint
  Ensures offenders make changes associated with reduction in future criminal behaviour.

These measures expect to produce a reduction of criminal activity, yet differ enormously in the mechanism anticipated to produce that reduction.

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Last update: Tuesday, August 26, 2008