Introduction

Over the past decades, a serious harshening of sentencing can be observed in many countries throughout the world. Responses to crime and harassing behaviors have changed; they are approached differently now than they were a few decades ago. In the US, ‘Three Strikes’ sentencing and mandatory minimum sentencing laws have been called into existence. Apart from longer prison terms, punitive trends have mounted up to the creation of several other ways of locking people up, disabling them or disqualifying them to such an extent that it is, in fact, made impossible for them to continue or repeat certain criminal behaviors or behaviors that intrude on the public order: Incapacitation.