Реферат: Three Strikes And You

prosecutions of offenders through the current two and three

strikes laws (Tischler, 1999). Fifteen of the twenty-three

states that have three strikes laws have incarcerated

between zero and six inmates since 1993 according to The

Campaign for an Effective Crime Policy (Tischler, 1999).

The second reason Walker cites is the impact of the

three strikes laws on the criminal justice system. These

laws are affecting the system by overcrowding prisons,

subjecting criminals to excessive prison terms, and costing

society entirely too much money (Walker, 1998). The three

strikes law in California stipulates that your first two

“strikes” are acquired when you commit two serious or

violent felonies. However the third strike can be any type

of felony, violent or nonviolent (Schafer, 1999). For this

reason, more and more criminals are being put away,

especially in California, for third strikes that are

nonviolent and relatively small crimes and overcrowding our

prisons at a fast rate.

In 1996, males under the age of twenty-five accounted

for forty-five percent of the individuals arrested for index

crimes (Schafer, 1999). This raises questions for skeptics

of three strikes laws. Why incarcerate offenders for life

when their criminal tendencies statistically drop after a

certain age? These opponents assert that three strikes laws

subject offenders to over-incarceration. This leads to the

next issue concerning money. Burr states in his study

comparing the impact of the three strikes law in California

to the impact in Canada that “over-incarceration does not

serve the interest of justice or the interests of the