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I have no problem putting money into education on the front end of the thing to reduce spending on prisons on the tail end of it.
Problem is, most states have tried that, are currently trying it, and will continue to try it until the end of time, yet crimes still happen.
Having overcrowded prisons is better than having criminals crowd the streets.
A judge cannot say to child molester Bob that he doesn't have to go to prison because Child molester Joe was placed in the last cell yesterday.
We can always build more prisons. But we cannot always rebuild lives destroyed by criminals.
And in every state I am aware of, the three strikes laws is for felonies only.
A guy could steal ten whole pizzas and the amount would likely make it a misdemeanor.
But I would also argue that if you're not a criminal, then why do you have to worry about what the consequences would be if you were?
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
And that's good that the barber went straight. You can learn all kinds of skills in prison work, from culinary to manufacturing to carpentry, HVAC and plumbing. All jobs you can get on the outside
Yet some people just have no intention of ever going straight. So three strikes laws need to be there, or the victim count will just keep on rising.
Education helps but it’s not the sole savior. Just my opinion, but crime in America appears to be the result of a broken family structure + hype materialism + easy access to guns. Overcrowded prisons may not be a problem when it comes to violent offenders, but does it really make sense to life imprison drug dealers or other types of non-violent offenders. At that point it's just a waste of money and only contributes to the broken family structure dynamic furthering the problem. I would rather see the money spent on proper rehabilitative services this way the offender can become a productive member of society, saving tax money.
Education helps but it’s not the sole savior. Just my opinion, but crime in America appears to be the result of a broken family structure + hype materialism + easy access to guns. Overcrowded prisons may not be a problem when it comes to violent offenders, but does it really make sense to life imprison drug dealers or other types of non-violent offenders. At that point it's just a waste of money and only contributes to the broken family structure dynamic furthering the problem. I would rather see the money spent on proper rehabilitative services this way the offender can become a productive member of society, saving tax money.
How often has an ex-con become a contributing member of society? Hardly ever from the ones I know. Many are unable to be rehabilitated. They have never been able to live by societal norms and never will.
Most of the time it is not the third offense that gets them life. It is the third time caught! It may be the 43rd offense. I never knew of anyone that was so unlucky or so bad a criminal that they got arrested the only 3 times they committed a crime.
Nonviolent criminals should not be exempt. Would you rather get robbed and end up with a broken arm or have your life savings swindled? Or your identity stolen and take years to recover from that?
Jailing criminals drove down crime in the 1990's. Since 2014 various jurisdictions have undone those efforts because they thought with crime so low jailing criminals wasn't needed. Crime returned.
Alternatives to jailing don't work. Education doesn't work. Jailing works.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Normally I would say that if a person doesn't learn their lesson after being jailed twice, then put them back and leave them there. The problem is that more often than not today, even two violent felonies may not result in significant jail time, if any.
Before going to a 3 strike law, enforce and punish for the laws we already have, and that will make a big difference, and maybe more of them wouldn't get to the 3rd offense.
Well how many times can one get released and keep stealing cars before we realize that they are unlikely to stop stealing cars, and decide to keep them locked up where they can't steal cars anymore?
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
The consequences for auto theft are irrelevant to anyone who doesn't plan to steal any autos.
Auto theft is five years minimum be in my state. What do you think should happen to someone who has served two separate prison sentences for two separate auto thefts, only to get released and do it again a third time?
I think it kind of defeats the purpose of the 3-strike law.
For something like auto-theft... when done so without aggravated assault (dude just breaks into a car in a parking lot and drives off with it)... then he/she should just get the time for the crime. If it's 5 w/ restitution... then he would get 5 years each time w/ restitution. I love cars, don't get me wrong, and I'm not some dude from San Francisco that thinks you should be allowed to steal from CVS if it's under $1,000 bucks.
I just think life in prison for stealing three cars over the span of 15 (or 10) years is probably a bit aggressive. It's not really helping anyone.
This could be a totally pointless argument, since I don't even know what these 3-strike laws necessarily apply to.
How often has an ex-con become a contributing member of society? Hardly ever from the ones I know. Many are unable to be rehabilitated. They have never been able to live by societal norms and never will.
Most of the time it is not the third offense that gets them life. It is the third time caught! It may be the 43rd offense. I never knew of anyone that was so unlucky or so bad a criminal that they got arrested the only 3 times they committed a crime.
Nonviolent criminals should not be exempt. Would you rather get robbed and end up with a broken arm or have your life savings swindled? Or your identity stolen and take years to recover from that?
No sympathy from me.
I see it all the time. I grew up in an area were many of my peers turned to crime. Sadly, some have been career criminals, but others other have become productive societal members. Productive as in staying out of the trouble, working, and paying taxes. Shouldn't we study what made the productive ones successful and try to emulate the conditions with the others, instead of just "locking them up and throwing away the key."
Nonviolent crimes should be exempt. You presented a loaded question. If you're being robbed, you don't know what will happened to you. The perpetrator is using a weapon. Also, robbery is considered a violent offence.
Jailing criminals drove down crime in the 1990's. Since 2014 various jurisdictions have undone those efforts because they thought with crime so low jailing criminals wasn't needed. Crime returned.
Alternatives to jailing don't work. Education doesn't work. Jailing works.
A good argument could be made that legalizing abortion nationwide drove down crime rates. A good argument could be made that education, specifically after school programs aimed at discouraging gang affiliations and drug usage drove down crime. Case in point correlation doesn’t equal causation. If you notion that jailing for life is the only thing that works, then I would expect to see states with higher incarnation rates experiencing less crime. This is simply not the case. Crime is often the result of much larger society problems. You got to get to the root and attack it in multiple ways.
I've never been a fan of policies that tie the hands of everyone in perpetuity. I've seen this in practice with things unrelated to crime, just people who think they are "protecting the future" without realizing the future is going to be different than they think. Our school board once created a rule that a certain % had to be spent on a particular thing, only that thing wasn't important 15 years later and then there was a battle to undo what folks in the past had done...with the best of intentions of course.
Make all the rules and laws you want, but always have an easy override available when things just don't make sense.
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