Three Strikes Law

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After 3 convicted crimes, one would spend life in prison under this law. I am referring to serious crimes here, not small crimes such as shoplifting a pack of gum.

I would support it.

1. The three strikes are only of convicted crimes. A person could have committed several more crimes than they were convicted for.
2. After committing a serious crime a third time, its clear that the person is likely not going to change.
3. After the second strike, an effective deterrent is provided.

Which is just fine, except that even in the days of drawing and quartering, or the other days of getting parts sliced off, the "effective deterrent" has proven to be mostly an incentive to acquire greater skill as a criminal, not seriously impacting the crime rate - though the really stupid impervious to learning criminals might get removed from the stream.

Also, your proposal fails to answer the issue of overcrowded prisons leading to higher rates of release.

The idea behind "three strikes" laws is not so much deterrence as prevention. If they're in prison, they can't be committing crimes. And yes, if you're going to use that strategy, you have to build more prisons.

I think there might be some issues regarding what constitutes a "serious" crime.

Routine capital punishment or dismemberment as was common in the Middle Ages also act as "prevention" from your twisted logic. (I don't know how any after-the-fact punishment can be labeled "prevention," but whatever) That time period did not see lower crime rates than we have now, so on simple empirical grounds such a proposal is garbage.

Hell yeah, but I'm not buying the deterrence argument. Lack of impulse control is known to be typical among crooks. What deters crooks is the certainty of getting caught, not the severity of it.

Hold on. Don't Conservatives look back to the Middle Ages as a time of unbridled joy? And place the blame squarely on "Liberals" for the subsequent collapse of civilization?

I was more polite; yours is arguably more comprehensible.

Disincentivization of crime is a form of prevention, however, your point is still valid, as I would guess that the suffering there would be subjectively worse than imprisonment.

I think AceofSpades point is considered more correct.

There is often a trade-off between politeness and clarity of expression. I am not skilled in the art of euphemism, so I call it as I see it.

Observation does not support this claim. People seldom consider the legal consequences of committing a crime, as they do not intend to be caught at all. More and more severe "deterrents" and "disincentives" do not result in lower crime rates.

Right, you showed that, but your claim "I don't know how any after-the-fact punishment can be labeled "prevention,"" isn't a claim about whether this is actual, but rather whether it is possible. If human nature were different, then providing disincentives would be a prevention of future crimes.

I tend to regard three strike laws like Marxism; they look good on paper but don't work out so well in the real world. California paved the way with these laws, and their prisons are so overcrowded now that they're being ordered by a court to reduce the population. I've also heard enough stories of people getting life sentences for petty crimes that I'm pretty thoroughly soured on the whole three strikes concept.

Interesting side note about deterrence and disincentive; while greater punishment by the state seems relatively ineffective, increasing the danger of the crime itself does seem to have an effect. I used to recite the stats on American burglaries as part of my gun arguments, since American burglars are far less likely than British or Canadian ones to knowingly enter an occupied house. Prison interviews with convicted burglars confirmed that their greatest concern while burgling was not getting caught or going to jail, but being shot by a homeowner. There was even a recent case where a man broke into a house and had the homeowner return unexpectedly; he hid in the shower and called the police on himself to negotiate his surrender out of fear of the homeowner.

3 strikes here just chases a lot of criminals to places that used to have no gangs and low crime rates. Like Dox47 said, it does overcrowd our prisons. We should just execute 3 strikers if a sufficient standard of evidence is met.

I agree!


http://www.economist.com/node/16693779

Actually, it's your twisted logic that links those two. I'm just pointing out that historical recidivism may be a predictor of future recidivism. My own logic you of course snipped from your quote, Mr. expert-at-distorting-others'-positions.

As for empirical grounds, there's a strong recent correlation between high prison population and low crime rates. "Three strikes" laws that are currently on the books are blamed for the current high prison population. Should they also get credit for the current low crime rates too? As far as I know it has neither been proved nor disproved.

Exactly! Deterrent though fear for life.
Worse case scenario (if you want to call it that) is a criminal permanently removed from society as a threat, no prison costs to the tax payers, all for the cost of a few rounds of ammo.

Last edited by Raptor on 23 May 2011, 6:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.