Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Shame of Three Strikes Laws

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-the-shame-of-three-strikes-laws-20130327

by dmmalam • 13 years ago

17 11 13 years ago

lutterkd2• 13 years ago

He's not "unlucky". He was punished for a crime. He thought to himself, I'll just go and take what I want, and fuck everyone else. We don't want people like that in society. Good riddance.

It's not a serious crime? You're right. That's worse! He's so sociopathic that he'll break the law even when it's not even worth it to him! He'll take your property, even when he could pay for it.

GotAnyMegadeth2• 13 years ago

I agree, punishments should be inversely proportional to the crime.

benjohnson• 13 years ago

A rational person would stop stealing after the 2nd strike. It's wise to remove harmful and irrational people from society.

Justice would demand that we expand the law to include white-collar crimes.

dmmalam• 13 years ago

A lot of these people are mentally ill.

omonra• 13 years ago

I am not sure that 3 white collar crimes should be punishable by life sentence. Why not amend the law to only cover violent crime? For stealing of socks, maybe just have sentencing guidelines that take into account how many socks the offender had stolen before.

brg• 13 years ago

One very good change to this policy was mentioned in the article,

"Despite the passage in late 2012 of a new state ballot initiative that prevents California from ever again giving out life sentences to anyone whose "third strike" is not a serious crime"

This refers to California Proposition 36. It was passed with 70% approval. It also allows for resentencing, but I do not know under what conditions.

waps• 13 years ago

The article mentions what the Three strikes law actually says :

"Under the ballot initiative, anyone who had committed two serious felonies would effectively be sentenced to jail for life upon being convicted of a third crime."

So the reason for this "socks stealer" getting imprisoned for life is a) 2 violent crimes, using weapons (> 30 years back) b) stealing socks

Not saying it somehow means the punishment is justified, but ... slightly more nuanced than the article's view.

This is my general observation of America : nothing in America is forgiven. Any minor crime, quite literally even (a conviction for) jaywalking will massively impact your life (specifically your employment chances). You can buy your way out of most tickets and not doing so is a serious life-altering mistake. This is combined with only sporadic enforcement, meaning that effectively the people affected by this are random : nearly everybody jaywalks, 10 San Franciscans are convicted for it on a yearly basis, and find out the consequences are huge.

Once convicted, your chances for employment go down an order of magnitude, and this is not the state's doing. It is companies, but not as a matter of policy, it is regular Americans. In other words: the people on the street are doing it too themselves. It is almost as bad as the situation in muslim countries, except of course that thankfully the US state won't mutilate anyone on purpose.

GotAnyMegadeth2• 13 years ago

What about someone who has a bout of rebellious irrational behaviour when they were 18? Everyone does stupid stuff when they are 18 that they wouldn't dream of doing when they are older. Rather than assuming they are a right off from society and that everyone is better with out them, spend some of the 25+ years worth of prison money on educating them why what they did was stupid.

lutterkd2• 13 years ago

"Rather than assuming they are a right off from society and that everyone is better with out them, spend some of the 25+ years worth of prison money on educating them why what they did was stupid."

Isn't that what the first two strikes do? They went to prison once. They still indulged in criminal behaviour. They went to prison twice. They were told that if you do this again you will spend the rest of your life in prison, and they STILL committed a crime. Obviously trying to tell them that what did they is wrong is not working. We threatened them with a fucking lifetime in jail, and that still did nothing to stop them committing crimes? I think we can write them off at that point.

DanBC2• 13 years ago

Spending $50,000 per year to keep mild criminals off the streets is a bizarre choice.

Why not spend that money on drug rehab or mental health care, and turn these people into tax payers?

Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Shame of Three Strikes Laws

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