Is the Three Strikes law effective in reducing crime?
The latest research has indicated that those legal guidelines have not yielded outcomes consistent with the preliminary hype. However, the Three Strikes law appears to have modestly encouraged crime reductions in a few states. According to the crime scholar Franklin Zimring, “Americans were angry because despite having put a record number of people in prison, crime still seems out of control”1. Los Angeles district attorney opposed the idea of “three strikes and you are out” law, as he believed it would put so many low-level offenders in prison for life and it will a waste of money.
Should Three Strikes guidelines be standardized across all states?
This law ended up in many people occupying the prisons which are overcrowded grossly mostly with petty thieves. Some of the very extreme cases encountered were the case of a thief involved in pizza and another one in bicycle robbery, but because of their previous criminal records, they got 25 years of a life sentence in prison. This Three Strikes law was initiated for a very good cause to give security to the people so that they can live freely without any fear, but this law also has many flaws. Three strikes guidelines should only be standardized across those states where the offensive and big crime rates are high.
Should victim input be taken into consideration when the law is created?
“The worst way to enact a law is to do it in an emotional and angry response”. This shows that a victim’s input if in the condition of anger and emotion, it will impact a number of lives that will suffer and be caught against the law. Just like in the Three Strikes law, apart from serious criminal offenders, small and petty crime offenders are also serving 25 years of the life sentence, let’s say for just stealing a $100 thing. The impact on victim input can be big in society.
End Notes
- The report, Retro. 2018. “The Making Of The ‘Three Strikes’ Laws”. Nytimes.Com – Video. Accessed March 22 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000002579045/the-making-of-the-three-strikes-laws.html.
