Shock incarceration and prison crowding in Louisiana

One of the reasons given for the development of the shock incarceration program in the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections was to reduce crowding in the state prisons. In this article a method for examining the potential of a shock incarceration program for reducing prison crowding is proposed. Data from the first year of the shock program in Louisiana are used to illustrate the issues of importance to consider if a short-term incarceration program is going to have an impact on prison crowding.