DQ 4: Should juveniles who are arrested three or more times face mandatory incarceration sentences such as those contained in the three-strikes legislation?…
From viewing your discussion board you have a great start on an argumentive essay. I would have to disagree with DUI or OWI being a mandatory jail. Experiences that I’ve encountered being in the criminial justice field of study is some offenses don’t need jail time with a first time offense of an dui or owi, they need some rehibilition assistance by a professional to prove that they can remain sober on being on probation. Acaution that comes to mind is not everyone lives in Texas. The main point one isn’t really related to you theisis some people would gather the information thinking if a drivers resulting in a owi gets their license suspended for 3 to 5 years the law would be revoked due to the ignition interlock law. Second…
Beginning in the early 1990s, states began to enact mandatory sentencing laws for repeat criminal offenders. These statutes came to be known as "three strikes laws," because they were invoked when offenders committed their third offense. By 2003 over half the states and the federal government had enacted three strikes laws. The belief behind the laws was that getting career criminals off the streets was good public policy. However, incarceration of three strikes inmates for 25 years to life would drive up correctional costs. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld three strikes laws and has rejected…
Mandatory minimum sentences are another method that was designed to limit judicial discretion while maintaining a “get tough on crime” approach. Mandatory sentences are sentences where all people convicted of certain crimes will be punished equally with a set minimum prison term. I believe the intentions were good when these reforms went into place. I think the intended purpose was to get tough on crime, eliminate bias on the part of the judge, to make criminals think twice about breaking the law, and provide equal punishment to all criminals who commit the same crimes. Unfortunately these sentence guidelines do not allow a judge to take into consideration the first time offender, differentiate the deviance level of the offender, and it does not allow for the judge to tailor a punishment to each individual case. The “drug war” they were trying to control with these sentences has had a backfire effect. The drug lords they were trying to stop are not the ones being affected by the sentences; it is the nonviolent, low-level drug users who are overcrowding the prisons as a result of these sentences.…
3 Strikes laws demand double the standard prison term for a second felony conviction, and mandatory sentences of 25 years to life for a 3rd conviction. For an example of this law in action, lets look at a few hypothetical criminals. Our first villain, lets call him Jerry, is an 18 year old caucasian male from Olympia. He is convicted of armed robbery after holding up a convenience store. After agreeing to a plea bargain, Jerry is sentenced to 2 years in state prison and 3 years probation. Most would agree this is a fair sentence. 6 years later, Jerry is charged with 2nd degree assault after breaking another mans jaw in a fight at a minor league baseball game in Tacoma. His friend Tom is also charged with 2nd degree assault after hitting an innocent bystander with a beer bottle during the same fight. Tom receives a 3 year sentence, followed by a years probation. After a jury trial, Jerry is sentenced to 8 years in prison for the same crime. Why, you may ask. The answer is simple. 3 strikes laws demand that because Jerry has a previous felony conviction, although more than half a decade previous and completely unrelated, he is subject to double the standard sentence for his “2nd Strike”.…
Roughly 1/3 of strikers convicted for crimes are again other people The most common is robbery, burglary, assault and possession of drugs. (lao.ca.gov) half of the strikers are convicted of non-serious non-violent crimes. This is where the statistics raise people’s thoughts on the three strikes rule and calls it harsh. If you think of violent crimes, especially three violent crimes on one person, when you hear that they were sentenced to 25 years to life it seems appropriate. When you hear of non-violent crimes 25 years to life does seem to be pretty extensive. In our society, we want peace that means no violence. So to sentence a 3 time convicted person of having marijuana on them to 25 years to life in prison vs. the man who assaults people with weapons three times or more is…
This week we were able to read two articles that went along with our lecture. The first article, "Three Strikes and You're Out: California's new mandatory sentencing law on serious crime rates", by Stolzenberg and D'Alessio. This article looked at information gathered from cities where the three strikes law was mandated. The research looked at monthly data and found that the three strikes law had no effect on recidivism or crime rates. Personally, though some may agree with the three strikes law, I find it in some circumstances to be unjust. For starters, I feel as though this law does not allow the judge to fully review the case of an offender who has reached their third strike. The reason for this is that each crime committed is different…
The purpose of the “three strike” law against offenders was originally to help reduce the number of criminals who were running around free but what it had come down to was costing tax payers more than what they had bargained for. More than 57% of offenders in California who are placed in prison for the “three strike” law were typically arrested for nonviolent offenses such as drug violations and burglary. More serious offenders who had committed more serious violent crimes were getting of scotch free if it had been their 1st or 2nd offense. 1 in 4 prisoners or 42,000 inmates are serving time in California prisons were serving life terms of 25 years to life after being placed in the prison system against the “three strikes” law. Inmates serving time increased the cost to house them in the prison systems under this law by $8.1 billion with $4.7 billion of that amount being used to house nonviolent offenders. Offenders who were placed in the prison system by the “three strike” law committing nonviolent offenses such as drug related crimes and burglary outnumbered the total number of offenders placed who had committed more serious offenses such as rape, assault or murder. Voters are the only people who are able to repeal this law but what would be left for the inmates who are already placed in prison systems against the “three strike”…
Mandatory arrest for domestic violence calls is to ensure the safety of the victim from the alleged offender. I think this policy impacts the community significantly depending on the situation and the severity of the allegations. The pros of arrest for domestic violence calls ensure safety for the victim, family members and the community. The cons wit this issue is often times there are false allegations made and lack of sufficient evidence but because of policy a person must be placed under arrest. This can negatively impact a person’s life in many ways. They can lose their jobs and not get jobs because of their offenses. I would be against this policy because there isn’t always sufficient evidence leading one person to being the main aggressor…
Mandatory minimums are laws which require automatic prison terms for certain crimes, such as drug possession. These laws were passed to ensure that individual criminals served long prison sentences. However, there some critics that have voiced their concerns about mandatory minimum penalties in the United States.…
The American public is alarmed about crime, and with good reason. Our crime rate is unacceptably high, and many Americans feel like prisoners in their own homes, afraid to venture out for fear of becoming another statistic. Nation-wide attention was focused on so-called three-strike laws in 1994 when California voters approved an initiative mandating prison terms of 25-years-to-life for defendants convicted of a third felony. The California law also doubles minimum terms for second time offenders. The prison population has grown so much that most are already filled beyond capacity and many more prisons need…
Three strikes laws have been the subject of extensive debate over whether they are effective. Defendants sentenced to long prison terms under these laws have also sought to challenge these laws as unconstitutional. For instance, one defendant was found guilty of stealing $150 worth of video tapes from two California department stores. The defendant had prior convictions, and pursuant to California's three-strike laws, the judge sentenced the defendant to 50 years in prison for the theft of the video tapes. The defendant challenged his conviction before the U.S. Supreme Court in Lockyer v. Andrade (2003), but the Court upheld the constitutionality of the law.…
The Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) of 2010 (Public Law 111-220) was an act by Congress, and became law on August 3, 2010 ( ). The FSA intent is to reduce the gap between the amount of crack cocaine and powder cocaine needed to initiate federal criminal penalties from a 100:1 weight ratio to an 18:1 weight ratio. The FSA also eliminates the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for the possession of crack cocaine (Reid 2012).…
Murder is defined as the killing of one human being by another. Murderers should receive the death penalty, unless self-defense was a following factor. The killing of an innocent human being should never be something someone gets away with; no one should have to right to live after taking the life of another. However, the death penalty is known to be a “lethal lottery” and is applied at random. Therefore, I believe separate institutions should be constructed throughout the United States to separate average criminals from murderers.…
When we put someone in jail and deprive them of their liberty, their incarceration usually follows a series of legal encounters, called due process. Things like arrests, charge, preliminary hearing trial, conviction, sentences. We go through this procedure because the person accused of a crime is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty. This is nothing new, it’s a concept that goes back to the roman times, and it is guaranteed section of the charter of rights and freedoms. Except all too often in Canada, we throw people in jail who haven’t been found guilty of anything. In provincial jails across the country, there are prisoners who have not been convicted of any crime and who are living in appalling conditions, waiting dispositions of their…