Final answer:
The statement is false; selective incapacitation is not a strategy to reduce prison populations but targets high-risk offenders to prevent crime. Mass incarceration has proven ineffective for less serious crimes and juvenile offenders, and does not necessarily correlate with lower crime rates.
Step-by-step explanation:
Selective incapacitation is not a strategy used to reduce prison populations; rather, it is a policy that specific high-risk offenders should be incapacitated through imprisonment to prevent them from committing future crimes. So, the statement that selective incapacitation is used by some states to reduce prison populations is false. It is intended to target high-risk offenders, while alternatives such as non-prosecution of non-violent misdemeanors, drug treatment programs, and community service have been shown to reduce subsequent crime and prevent overcrowding of prisons.
The law-and-order movement of the 1970s and the imposition of harsh penalties and policies like the three strikes law in the 1990s led to a sharp increase in the incarceration rates in the United States. This era's policies were in response to a cultural movement towards 'getting tough on crime.' Over the years though, it has been observed that mass incarceration is not necessarily correlated with a substantial decrease in crime rates.
Despite falling crime rates both domestically and internationally, it is not clear that such decreases can be attributed to high rates of incarceration. Criminologists suggest other factors like demographic changes have played a significant role in this reduction. In fact, research suggests that incarceration can be effective for certain high-risk offenders, but not for less serious or drug-related offenses. Moreover, juvenile incarceration has been demonstrated to be particularly ineffective and even counterproductive, suggesting a need for varying approaches to different types of offenses.