Three Strikes Law Research Paper

“Three strikes and you’re out”. This is the all too familiar term we are used to hearing in baseball and in the rules of the law in some states. Most heard of in California. Three strikes sentencing were adopted in 1994. It imposed longer prison sentences for repeat offenders. The law requires a person who is convicted of a felony and who previously has been convicted of one or more violent and/or serious felonies. The main feature of the Three Strikes law is the imposition of a life sentence for any felony conviction, no matter how minor, if the defendant has two prior "serious" felony convictions. "Serious" felonies are defined by the California Penal Code and range from murder and rape to non-confrontational residential burglary and purse-snatching.
A third strike offense can be any felony, including simple drug possession or petty theft. Second strike offense if the person has one previous serious or violent felony conviction is twice the term required under law for the new conviction. The third strike offense is a person that has two or more previous serious or violent convictions is sentenced to a life term with the earliest parole after 25 years served. (fbi.gov)
Under the current law, most second strikers are automatically released from prison after completing their sentences. In contrast, third strikers are only released upon approval by the state Board of Parole Hearings. Twenty-five states and the federal government have enacted three strikes legislation, increasing sentence lengths by two and setting minimum time to be served at 25 – 40 years.
Some of the major issues that are raised in the legislation is that the three strikes law will have little to do with crime prevention as the crime rate in recent years is slowing, life sentences for a third time offender will require spending more money in order to support their imprisonment, and a penalty is a harsh one for criminals convicted of certain felonies such as drug possession.
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
ludacris.
Another issue raised is the cost it takes to keep these criminals behind bars for all those years.
You are taking care of these people. Food, hygiene, shelter, electricity, medicine, etc. All of which are highly expensive for just one person over a 25 year span let alone thousands of inmates. The basic shelter and food are expensive enough, that is assuming they do not have a ton of medical issues. Medical issues are just another added expense that can cost thousands of dollars. This is another reason why a lot of people are more supportive of lethal injection or the electric chair. Yes there are liability issues but I think that is something the legislation should look at. Get it all figured out and start doing that, because yes the injection of the medicine costs money and its costs money to run electricity for the chair but it is dramatically cheaper than the expense of keeping someone alive. To that argument, instant death is giving that “criminal” the easy way
out.
Being sentenced to the three strikes law also impacts the corrections department. The legal and technical issues, backlogging the criminal histories and possibly getting some confusion are all issues corrections have to face. The continued monitoring and/or dealing with the “I have nothing to lose” attitude from inmates can be very dangerous as far as the safety towards the staff.