California's Three Strikes Law California's "Three Strik

California's "Three Strikes Law," enacted in 1994, mandates long prison terms or penalty enhancements for repeat felons. Backers of the Three Strikes Law argued that repeat offenders commit most felonies, so the law would reduce crime by putting them behind bars, often for good. Five years later, the law has succeeded in putting a lot of people behind bars. However, the Three Strikes Law has not accomplished its primary goal of cutting crime. This paper will argue that the Three Strikes Law has not only failed to reduce crime, the law has proven unjust because of its often harsh and arbitrary implementation.

California's legislature passed the Three Strikes Law in March of 1994 and Governor Pete Wilson quickly signed it. Eight months later, California voters put their stamp of approval on the new law by overwhelmingly passing Proposition 184, a ballot initiative that mirrored the language of the March legislation.

Specifically, the Three Strikes Law created penalty enhancements for repeat felons. Thus, the law lengthened sentences for some defendants based on previous transgressions rather than their current offense. For example, a second felony conviction could result in a five-year enhancement to that defendant's prison term, while a third felony conviction could bring a mandatory sentence of 25 years to life.

Five years later, crime is indeed down in California�way down. Backers of the Three Strikes Law point to this data as proof of the law's efficacy in re

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in crime, the more complex it gets," said UCLA professor Eric Monkkonen. "It's like cancer: The more we know, the more what looks like one problem becomes a series of problems." The symposium, Monkkonen concluded, made it clear that we will not be able to solve the crime problem by "any one single policy" but rather we need a combination of approaches (Butterfield 16). Ultimately, everybody is asking the same questions: Why do people commit crimes? What methods can we use to alter such behavior? No doubt some people are "born" criminals, and since society has no cure for their antisocial behavior, they must be locked up. The vast majority of criminals, however, are "made." Identifying the factors that make people into criminals will go a long way towards developing policies to address those causes. Researchers can provide some answers in that area. Extensive study demonstrates a correlation between a child's poor performance in school and criminal activity as an adult. Left unanswered is the question of whether poor school performance is a symptom or a cause of a future criminal. Criminologists offer three competing theories to explain criminal behavior: Strain Theory, Social Control Theory, and Deviance Theory. S

Category: Government - C