STRIKE LAW IN CALIFORNIA

Three Strike Law in California

Three Strike Law in California

Introduction

Three strikes laws are statutes enacted by state authorities in the United States which require the state enclosures to hand down a mandatory and expanded time span of incarceration to persons who have been convicted of a serious criminal infringement on three or more distinct occasions (Turner, 1995). These statutes became very well liked in the 1990s. Twenty four states have some form of habitual offender laws.

The first true "three strikes" regulation, with virtually no exceptions provided was passed in 1993, when Washington state voters approved Initiative 593. California passed its own in 1994, when that state voters passed Proposition 184 by an overwhelming most 72% in favor and 28% against. The initiative proposed to the voters had the name of Three Strikes and You're Out, mentioning to de facto life imprisonment after being convicted of three felonies. (Michael, 1995)

The concept swiftly disperse to other states, but no one of them chose to take up a law as sweeping as California's: By 2004, twenty-six states and the government had laws that persuade the general criteria for designation as "three strikes" statutes—namely, that a third felony conviction brings a judgment of life in prison, with no parole possible until a long period of time, most commonly twenty-five years, has been served. (Mike, 2004)

Background

The Rationale for Three Strikes repeats offenders are perhaps the most difficult of criminal offenders for state and local criminal justice systems to manage. Those offenders are advised unresponsive to incarceration as a means of behavior modification, and undeterred by the outlook of serving time in prison. For this cause, longer sentences for this assembly of offenders have a powerful appeal to principle makers and the public. Supporters of Proposition 184 contended that enforcing long judgments on repeat lawbreakers would decrease crime in two ways. First, extended sentences, also referred to as sentence enhancements, and would remove repeat felons from society for longer periods of time, thereby restricting their ability to commit additional crimes. Second, the risk of such long judgments would discourage some offenders from committing new crimes ( Franklin, 2001).

Analysis

The accurate application of the three strikes laws varies considerably from state to state. Some states require all three felony convictions to be violent crimes in order for the mandatory sentence to be pronounced, while others — most notably California — mandate the enhanced sentence for any third felony conviction so long as the first two felonies were deemed to be either "violent" or "serious," or both (Mike, 2004).

The State of California is noted to have the harshest three-strike laws. Existing law classifies some felonies, as "violent" or "serious." California's "three hits and you're out" law demands that if an individual has two or more preceding that are grave or violent felony convictions, the sentence for any additional felony conviction (not just serious or brutal) is 25 years to life.

More than 7,000 people have been sent to California's prisons with life sentences under the state's three-strike ...