Three-Strike Law Review
Hello Gonzalez,
The suggestion about having lawmakers to review the three-strike law so that juries can have the liberty and discretion to sentence habitual offenders justly is relevant and worth adopting. This can be associated with the fact that the law not only hurts those send behind bars for very petty offenses like in the case of Lockyer v. Andrade, but also weighs so much on the pocket of taxpayers as you have noted in your analysis.
In addition to your recommendation, I also think granting courts the power to re-sentence offenders who are currently serving life sentences and whose third strike cannot be termed as violent will go a long way in making the law fair and just. This can be done without necessarily changing the law, which is likely to take longer. I think the strength of your post lies in the fact that you have demonstrated with evidence that the law is costly to sustain to both the criminal justice system and citizens as it is currently. Additionally, the rational choice theory satisfactorily justifies the reason why the law adopted harsh penalties in order to deter crime, although evidence to support the effectiveness of harsh penalties and deterrence of crime is very little as you have succinctly indicated.
A very significant obstacle to the implementation of your recommendation worth considering is the fact that not everyone sees a problem with the three-strike law. This means that changing the law legislatively is not easy because the process often requires 2/3 of the members of the legislature to support it.
On the other hand, the weakness of your post lies in the fact that you have not provided both the long term and immediate plans of actions that will help implement your recommendation. If changing the law is likely to take long, I think providing immediate actions in your work that can be implemented in the meantime will go a long way in making the post more informative and edifying. Furthermore, the post does not indicate how the success of changing or modifying the three-strike law will be measured in case the recommendation is adopted. For example, collecting data on the number of offenders whose third strike was ruled non-violent and as such, got sentenced to serve a milder sentence other than life sentence.
Otherwise, your evaluation, recommendation and critical examination of the three-strike law supported with evidence is commendable and creditable.
