Three Strikes and You’re Out
Posted on December 10, 2007
Filed Under Criminal Law, Felonies, Three Strikes |
Three strikes and you’re out; the saying doesn’t just apply to baseball anymore. The “Three Strikes and You’re Out” statute became effective in California in March of 1994. It essentially means that if you’re convicted of three felonies, you may face up to a life-time prison sentence.
The reasoning behind the law is that chronic criminals are incorrigible and shouldn’t be allowed to continue to be a threat or
burden to society. In some cases, this goal is reached. Other times, it’s a debate for the critics.
Because the three strikes law applies to a range of violent crimes and felonies ranging from homicide and rape to robbery, those the law applies to don’t always face justice. While most people would be in favor of a rapist being put away for life after his third offense, should the same standards apply to a burglar? Some people think so. But what about those people the law isn’t properly serving?
What about the armed robber on his second strike who is willing to kill a police officer in order to escape a potential life-sentence?
What about the guilt-ridden child molester on his second strike who violates another child just to be put behind bars for good?
The website threestrikes.org estimates that California saved $28,493,010,750, or just under $28.5 billion in the ten years after the enactment of the three strikes law, as violent crimes and serious felonies dropped from 8,825,353 to 6,780,964 within those years.
If a law saves money, some people are all for it. But it’s not just the three strikes law that’s responsible for this decline. The decline in crime across the U.S. was similar in states that didn’t have the three strikes law, and it’s unlikely that those approximately hundred thousand Californians locked up because of the three strikes law could have committed the 2 million or so crimes the law is being praised of reducing.
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