"Three Strikes" Law at the Federal Level This paper

"Three Strikes" at the Federal Level

This paper will discuss the possible effects of the proposed "three strikes" laws on the administration of criminal justice at the Federal level. Among the possible effects which will be studied are those on prison overcrowding, government finances, and conviction rates. The paper will also discuss whether these mandatory sentencing laws will have any effect on deterrence and recidivism.

During the past several years, crime has moved to the forefront of popular consciousness in the United States and the fear of crime has increased, although actual crime rates have generally decreased since the middle part of the 1980s. Among the crime "facts" which have surfaced in popular culture is the one which states that most violent crime is committed by a relatively small group of repeat offenders. These individuals are able to commit such acts because most serve only a small part of their sentences before being released. Consequently, it has become conventional wisdom that crime would be reduced substantially if those who insisted upon continuing their criminal careers were incarcerated for the rest of their lives (Economist, 1994, February 5, p. 16).

Since 1992, it has become increasingly popular to propose laws which would force judges to sentence individuals convicted of their third felony to life imprisonment. The first jurisdiction to enact such a law was the state of Washington; the largest state to enact a three strikes law was C

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ich would apply only to those convicted of violent offenses. President Clinton had shared some of the same misgivings about an all-inclusive three strikes law as its critics and insisted that the federal proposal backed by his Administration include only violent offenses. The Senates crime bill passed during the Autumn of 1993 included two separate three strikes provisions which would include crimes not normally considered "dangerously violent." With his proposal, the President was able to respond to the public outcry against violent crime while bowing to the fiscal realities involved in criminal punishment (Lauter, 1994, February 16, pp. A1, A22). Consequently, the Administration's proposal would limit the immediate impact of the three strikes law on the federal criminal justice system. While the Senate's proposals, which include drug offenses within the scope of the three strikes law, would affect more than 600 defendants convicted of felonies per year, it is estimated that the Administration proposal would apply to only 200 or 300 per year (Cooper, 1994, March 2, p. A5). The reason for this is that far fewer violent felony cases are heard in federal courts than in state courts. More than one-half of these federal cases

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