Three Strikes Law

Three Strikes Law
B. A. Barth
Criminal Justice Administration
100204

The Three Strikes Laws Begun in the 1990s, the Three Strikes Laws are a category of statutes which were enacted in the United States by certain state governments. These laws were enacted to mandate longer periods of imprisonment for persons convicted of a felony on three or more separate offenses. The term is used similar the three strikes and you’re out rule in baseball. This could also be described, as such statutes are most often known, officially as mandatory sentencing laws. The underlying philosophy of these laws is that any person who commits more than two felonies can justifiably be considered incorrigible and chronically criminal, and that permanent imprisonment is then mandated for the safety of society. While the practice of imposing longer prison sentences on repeat offenders than on first-time offenders who commit the same crime is nothing new in American states (since the 19th Century, New York State has had a Persistent Felony Offender law that continues to this date), these sentences were not always held mandatory in every case, and judges exercised much more discretion in what the length of the sentence would be. In 1993, Washington State passed the first true "three strikes" law, which contained virtually no exceptions to this law. One year later, California adopted this law (approved by referendum in that state) and the “three strikes” idea spread swiftly to the other states. By 2004, 26 states of the 50 U.S. states as well as the federal government had laws which resembled or otherwise satisfied the basic requirements to be called a "three strikes" law - primarily, a person convicted of a third felony conviction will be sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole until a long period of time, most commonly 25 years, has been served. How the three-strike laws are applied throughout the states varies considerably. Some require that all three felony convictions to be for violent crimes, otherwise the order for the mandatory sentence cannot be implemented, while other states, California in particular, implement the extended sentence for any third felony conviction as long as the first two felonies were considered either "violent" or "serious," or both. This leads to a few unusual cases in which a State Law punishes shoplifting and similar crimes as felony petty thefts if the person committing such a crime has any prior convictions for any form of stealing, including robbery or burglary, regardless of how long ago the original crime was committed. This has led to some offenders being sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for stealing small items as computer discs or even candy from a convenience store. This has received harsh criticism from many other Countries, not to mention here in the United States. In resulted of this criticism, several challenges to this aspect of the three strikes law are currently pending, both in state and federal courts. In California, for example, on November 2, 2004, the state's voters will be given the opportunity to change this law with Proposition 66, which, when approved, would require the third felony to be either "violent" and/or "serious" in order to result in a 25-years-to-life sentence. In addition to the information given above, another primary criticism of the three strikes laws is that many felonies only involve an insignificant threat to other’s in society. In many states, possession of a small amount of an illegal substance such as crack cocaine or even marijuana may be result in a felony conviction, and so three such convictions would require permanent imprisonment. Not to mention many other felonies which call into question the rationalization of strict three-strike laws, including some minor white-collar crimes which only slightly qualify as felonies. Many times a burglary, a crime which could result in the theft of something having little or no value, is perceived as being unjustly included as one of the three "strikes." Some have also argued that these laws can provide criminals with a perverse incentive to commit murder. If a certain person already has two felony convictions, then a conviction for any third felony (such as grand theft) may carry a penalty comparable to that for a murder conviction. If by killing a witness to a crime, a criminal may reduce his or her chances of being apprehended, then under a three-strike law he or she has no incentive not to commit the murder.