"Three Strikes and You're Out: A Bad Crime Policy

"Three Strikes and You're Out" crime laws, which are now in effect in almost 20 states in the U.S., are essentially laws that mandate that an individual who commits three of a certain group of felonies receives a mandatory prison sentence ranging from 25 years to life (Mauer, 1996). Walker's Proposition #20 states succinctly that "three strikes and you're out" laws are a terrible crime policy. In this essay, arguments supporting Walker's Proposition #20 will be advanced.

Mandatory sentencing laws have become very popular in recent years. The Bureau of Justice Assistance reported that virtually every state and the federal government have enacted some type of mandatory sentencing law (Stolzenberg & D'Alessio, 1997). The primary purpose of these laws is to increase the severity of criminal sanctions, requiring that offenders who are found guilty of certain crimes serve fixed minimum prison terms. At its heart, these policies target chronic or habitual offenders rather than first-time or even second-time offenders. However, as Stolzenberg and D'Alessio (1997) pointed out, long before the "three strikes" legislation was introduced in California, most states had habitual offender statutes which made it possible for a convicted offender with a prior record to receive longer prison sentences than otherwise might be granted including life in prison without the possibility of parole.