oa Het incapacitatie-effect van de eerste gevangenisstraf: een gematchte vergelijking

The incapacitation effect of first-time imprisonment: A matched samples comparison .

One sure way that imprisonment prevents crime in the community is by incapacitating offenders. We used official criminal records data of all individuals convicted in the Netherlands in 1997 to provide estimates of the incapacitation effect of first-time imprisonment. Two different analytical strategies were applied for the estimation of the incapacitation effect. First, the incapacitation effect was estimated based on the offending rate individuals imprisoned in 1997 showed prior to their confinement. Second, imprisoned offenders were paired with comparable non-imprisoned offenders using the method of propensity score matching. Our best estimate is that between 0.17 and 0.21 registered offenses are prevented per year of incarceration.