Pros And Cons Of Three Strikes Law

In this paper, I will be explaining what the three strikes law is and its purpose. I will also be explaining why the three strikes law is controversial by defining the defending arguments from the pros and cons sides. I will also use relevant facts and statistics to demonstrate the response from the public in regards to the three strikes law. Lastly I will argue, why we should eliminate the use of the three strikes law due to its injustice to not only the criminals, but also to those of us who are innocent of crimes. The three strikes law was first passed in 1993 by Washington State to keep repeated criminals off the streets along with deterring crime (Clark et al, 1997). The first few requirements of the three strikes laws were that if the

Robert Nash Parker states that the three strikes law purpose of preventing career criminals from committing crimes was irreverent to the decrease of crime; he also states that the increase of crime before the implementation of the law was due to economic struggles of the state before 1994. However, ever since the three strikes law was established in California, there has been an astounding decrease of crime rates including violent and nonviolent crimes (Brown & Jolivette, 2005). Studies show, that in fact, the three strikes law has had a decrease of felony arrests in California from 17 percent to 20 percent (Brown & Jolivette,

The aging process in prison is a process in which criminals who are entering their elderly years in prison, require special medical care or attention (Brown & Jolivette, 2005). This increases the costs of prisons to be two to three times more than the average of thirty-five thousand dollars per personal in order to care for elderly prisoners (Brown & Jolivette, 2005). And with the costs of prisons and courts rising with each arrest, law enforcements gross incomes and funding are also significantly cut therefore, if we are trying to keep criminals in jail, what significance does it make if we do not have law enforcements to regulate crime? And if we have more law enforcements jobs available, we could provide jobs to unrepresented minority groups thus leading to a more diverse law enforcement population decreasing biased judgements with in the judicial system. And taking in consideration the acts of criminals who are convicted of the three strikes rule are non-violent, we have criminals who are taking up space in prisons cells which could be used to house violent criminals instead. President Barack Obama also states that with additional 80 billion dollars that states use to regulate prisons, every post-secondary student in the nation could go to college for free. This is astounding as college tuition rises each year making it harder for students to attend the college