Three Strikes Rule
Mr. Gundersen
Government and Politics AP
29 September 2013
The Three Strikes Rule
The relation of violent crimes and the idea of recidivism has always been something that has been taken into account in the legal system. As early as 1895 in the Gladstone Committee Report, habitual offenders have garnered attention in penology circles (Katkin 99). The idea of punishing recidivism is split among politicians, though, as many politicians who disagree argue that the result is too monetarily costly for the state and the state’s citizens. One of the proposed solutions to this problem is what is called the “Three Strikes Rule”. Because this is a reserved power of the states, no decision made is federal, thus there are many heated debates over …show more content…
On June 29, 1992, in Fresno, California, Kimber Reynolds was approached on the street by two men on a motorcycle. One of the men tried to steal her purse, and when she resisted, the other pulled a .357 Magnum out of his waistband and shot her in the side of the head. She died 26 hours later. After a couple days of searching, they found the location of the gunman, Joe Davis. Davis was a 25-year-old confirmed methamphetamine user repeatedly convicted and jailed for offenses including armed robbery, auto theft, and illegal drug usage. Davis had only been released from prison a mere 3 months before Kimber’s shooting. As police surrounded Davis’ apartment, Davis stepped out and started firing at the police, eventually being shot to death by police officers. The accomplice was found not long after. His name is Douglas Walker, a 26-year-old repeat offender as well. He plead guilty in court. Walker received the maximum sentence possible, a 9-year stint. With good behavior, though, he’d be back on the Fresno streets in only half of that time. Reynolds knew the law needed to change to protect the non-criminals in America, and so he, personally, confronted the California state legislature. His proposal was that a second-time offender faced a sentence double that of what a single-time offender would face, and a third-time offender received twenty-five years to life. It was met coldly and almost immediately quashed. Nothing new about the law arose until October 1, 1993, when a 12-year-old girl, Polly Klaas, was kidnapped from her own slumber party by 39-year-old Richard Davis, a criminal with a lengthy history of violent crime. Davis had encountered police coincidentally about two months later, and it is believed that soon after, he murdered Polly by strangulation and buried
Government and Politics AP
29 September 2013
The Three Strikes Rule
The relation of violent crimes and the idea of recidivism has always been something that has been taken into account in the legal system. As early as 1895 in the Gladstone Committee Report, habitual offenders have garnered attention in penology circles (Katkin 99). The idea of punishing recidivism is split among politicians, though, as many politicians who disagree argue that the result is too monetarily costly for the state and the state’s citizens. One of the proposed solutions to this problem is what is called the “Three Strikes Rule”. Because this is a reserved power of the states, no decision made is federal, thus there are many heated debates over …show more content…
On June 29, 1992, in Fresno, California, Kimber Reynolds was approached on the street by two men on a motorcycle. One of the men tried to steal her purse, and when she resisted, the other pulled a .357 Magnum out of his waistband and shot her in the side of the head. She died 26 hours later. After a couple days of searching, they found the location of the gunman, Joe Davis. Davis was a 25-year-old confirmed methamphetamine user repeatedly convicted and jailed for offenses including armed robbery, auto theft, and illegal drug usage. Davis had only been released from prison a mere 3 months before Kimber’s shooting. As police surrounded Davis’ apartment, Davis stepped out and started firing at the police, eventually being shot to death by police officers. The accomplice was found not long after. His name is Douglas Walker, a 26-year-old repeat offender as well. He plead guilty in court. Walker received the maximum sentence possible, a 9-year stint. With good behavior, though, he’d be back on the Fresno streets in only half of that time. Reynolds knew the law needed to change to protect the non-criminals in America, and so he, personally, confronted the California state legislature. His proposal was that a second-time offender faced a sentence double that of what a single-time offender would face, and a third-time offender received twenty-five years to life. It was met coldly and almost immediately quashed. Nothing new about the law arose until October 1, 1993, when a 12-year-old girl, Polly Klaas, was kidnapped from her own slumber party by 39-year-old Richard Davis, a criminal with a lengthy history of violent crime. Davis had encountered police coincidentally about two months later, and it is believed that soon after, he murdered Polly by strangulation and buried