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| 3 Strikes Targets Less Violent - Older Offenders |
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Posted by FoM on August 23, 2001 at 13:27:20 PT By Greg Krikorian, Times Staff Writer Source: Los Angeles Times 
A study released today concludes that California's controversial three-strikes law has contributed significantly to the aging of the state's prison population--a trend that could have significant implications for crime rates and the costs of the justice system. The report by the Sentencing Project of Washington, D.C., a liberal think tank, states that in the first five years after the 1994 law took effect, the median age of male inmates rose from 29 to 31. It had previously taken almost a quarter-century for the median age of inmates to increase from 26 to 29. Snipped Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #2 posted by Sam Adams on August 23, 2001 at 14:38:20 PT |
| Yes Dr. Russo, it's been a spectular failure. CA's 3 strikes and NY's Rockefeller drug laws are the most egregious criminal justice disasters in recent history. More people have been sentenced to 3 strikes in CA for marijuana offenses than for any other crime. The first person sentenced to 25 years under the program was convicted of larceny - stealing a 24-oz beer from a convenience store freezer. No shit. [ Post Comment ] |
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Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on August 23, 2001 at 13:42:13 PT:
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| The whole concept of 3 strikes was sold by politicians running on planks of being tough on crime. It was never based on science or sociology, but was rather driven by an increasingly powerful military-incarceration complex whose lobbying force is formidable. Dubya's tax refunds are in the mail, Social Security is in trouble, and government is wasting your money on this nonsense. Prison is for violent people who cannot be integrated into society--nothing else. Learn something from all those sociology PhD's for a change. [ Post Comment ] |
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