California's Three Strike Law
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California's Three Strike Law
In November of 1994 California passed legislation that would create mandatory sentencing of at least 25 years for a convicted criminals third felony. Other states followed and created similar laws that greatly increased repeat offenders jail time. The ultimate goal being that this would reduce the amount of violent crimes committed in these states. Studies were done statewide in California to determine if this program has been success or a failure in abating the number of serious felonies but they have only produced conflicting results about whether it is fixing the problem. Three strikes law has generated debate on its constitutionality and its overall affects on the states' population.
The year before California enacted the three strikes law it had over 330,000 incidents of violent crime. Seven years later California's violent crime rate has dropped to 210,000. The big issue here is that most criminologists do not connect the increase in sentencing to the decrease in crimes. Criminologists believe that the violent crimes that these laws set out to eliminate are something uncontrollable. Most violent crimes are not premeditated. The prospect of a life sentence is not going to deter people who are acting impulsively, under the influence, and without thought to the likely consequences of their actions.
Scenarios have arisen, especially in California where crimes involving shoplifting (shoplifting over $500 in property is a felony petty theft) have given defendants 25 years to life in prison. Gary Ewing was given 25 years for burglary and shoplifting golf clubs. Leandro Andrade received a double sentence of 25 years to life for 2 counts of shoplifting and one count of assault. Three strikes law states that the first and second strikes are counted by individual charges, rather than individual cases. A defendant can earn two strikes off of one criminal case. These instances have presented unique challenges to the law and make it difficult for supporters of...
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