Three Strikes Sentencing Law

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Three Strikes Sentencing Law

The paper aims to emphasis on the three strikes sentencing law within the United States. It refers to a movement has emerged, which sought to increase the penalties for the purpose of causing the reduction of crime and recidivism. In this context, there was the entry into force of various state laws called Three Strikes Laws or Three times loser Acts. Initially, it should be noted that the expression Three Strikes Laws comes from baseball, a game that is quite popular in the United States. This game has a basic rule which states that a batsman has only three (03) attempts to hit the ball, under penalty of being eliminated from the game. Each of missed chances is called strike. Thus, the laws called Three Strikes Laws punish, especially so severe, the convicted felon for the third time, leaving you literally out of the social life for a long time span. Indeed, the assumption of these standards is that these individuals would not be amenable to rehabilitation (Walsh, 2007).

Thus, the Three Strikes Laws from the idea that the criminal who got more than two (02) felony convictions is unrecoverable and must be removed permanently from society or neutralized by a long period of incarceration (imprisonment with the possibility of parole after completion of a minimum penalty of 25 years imprisonment). Therefore, in view of the simplicity of laws called Three Strikes Laws, and considering the desire of the American people for harsher punishments for repeat offenders, such laws were passed with relative ease in several U.S. states, among which stand out to California (1994); Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin (1995) and Florida, Tennessee and Virginia

Just as an illustration, in 1994, there was the passage of the law called Three Strike Law in California, which provides that any person convicted of a serious crime, which has previously been convicted of another serious offense (Second Strikes Cases ) should receive double the penalty established by law for the new criminal offense. Also, California sets the standard that the defendant already has at least 02 (two) previous convictions, the next sentence (Third Strike Cases) should be apenada with life imprisonment with a minimum period of 25 (twenty five) years confinement in a closed regime. Moreover, California law provides that all sentences after the third sentence should have the minimum 25 (years) and are summed in tender material. For example, a defendant sentenced to two (02) violations considered Third Strike should receive a minimum sentence of 50 (fifty) years in prison, if convicted to 03 (three) offenses considered third strike, the penalty shall be at least 75 (seventy five) years imprisonment. Finally, California law does not consider even the time gap between the sentences. Thus, it matters little whether the defendant's first conviction is for thirty (30) years.

Researcher claimed that in the 1990s there was a movement towards the revival of criminal penalties with ...