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.
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
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