Rationale of the Three Strike Laws Essay Example
Rationale of the Three Strike Laws Essay Example

Rationale of the Three Strike Laws Essay Example

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Law
  • Pages: 4 (978 words)
  • Published: November 25, 2021
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In the United States state of California, the voters and the legislators in the year 1994 enacted and approved some significant changes concerning the sentencing laws of criminals within the state. The laws were commonly called The Three Strikes Laws. The name of the laws elaborates the real meaning of these laws that were enacted at this year to curb and minimize the criminal activities in the state of California. The law required people to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison or for life given the offender is a three-time offender who has committed other several high-profile felonies. Also, if the offender had been convicted of other offences in the previous times like murder, and after his or her release he or she commits another serious felony, and then this law had to apply to this person (Neubauer

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& Fradella, 2011).

Voters and legislators raised concern in this state after ex-convicts were being released and after that, they commit another serious offences that are violent and unacceptable in the common society. Therefore, to minimize this situation, the state had to come up with laws to minimize or eliminate the possibility of a three-time offender to terrorize the regular citizens. In this discussion, we discuss the key provisions of the law and also the given evolution of this law in courts. The estimation of the impact given by the law to the common society and the criminal justice in the states is evident up to date since illegal activities have decreased in number. Three strikes law have been amended so far; it has managed to achieve the intended goals, and the available data shows tha

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the law is very active since repeat offenders have been warned. The rationale of this law is that repeat offenders are described as the tough criminal offenders to deal with in any given state and also its local criminal systems of justice to manage at any given points (Webster & Jackson, 2007).

This kind of offenders is described as the most unresponsive to any means of modification of their behavior and is not moved by the idea of serving a sentence in the prisons. This is the reason this group of offenders, when charged in criminal justice systems and serves a long sentence in prisons, can have very strong appeal to many of the policy makers including the public. The policy makers argued that the imposition of lengthy sentences to all repeat offenders could help to reduce criminal activities in many different ways. First, the extension of sentences that is also known as sentence adjustments to the repeat offender will remove the person from the society for a very long time and therefore, the offender is legally restricted from committing other offences in the society. The second one is that this long sentence will discourage other offenders from committing other forms of crimes from the fear of the sentence enhancements (Gendreau & Cullen, 2009). In the year 2004, preposition 66 of the law was to be changed, but the people denied to pass the preposition to amend the law.

They argued that many of other repeat offenders are being charged in courts harshly using the strike laws, but their offences were not violent at any cost. Therefore, the law has not been amended so far. The law

has improved the local systems of justice and also managed to decrease the crime rate in the state of California since law offenders are afraid of long term sentences. The low rates of criminal activities in the region can be associated with this law since, after its initiation; offenders have shied off their petty offences (Alexander, 2012).

The doctrine of duty of care and failure to protect

This doctrine of duty of care and failure to protect is one of the principles concerned with personal injury in the United States government laws.

This means that, the government owes the public various duties rather not individuals. This can be explained that, the any governmental entity in the any state can be held responsible only if a duty breached by the government was meant to an injured person as an given individual but not the responsibility it holds to the public at large. It is important to note that it is the duty of the government to protect all its citizens and the public as a whole (Miller & Meinzinger, 2014). In any case, whenever there is only the duty to protect the public not any individual and there is no duty to protect any given individual and may often result to liability. These doctrines that are normally formulated for the government to handle and take care of the public can often turn to a liability for the officers if at all they handle individuals violently. For example, if the police arrest a person innocently and assault the person and he is not guilty, the person is liable by law to sue the police officers for the arrest

and the assault and this ends up being a liability for the police.

United States laws argue that all state officers should use this doctrine for the purposes of handling each individual and the public with great care. Therefore, law states the doctrine states that the duty of the government is to protect the public not individuals and it categorically (Bellamy, 2015).

References

  • Alexander, M. (2012). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness.
  • Bellamy, A. J. (2015). The responsibility to protect: A defense.
  • Gendreau, P., Goggin, C., & Cullen, F. T. (2009). The effects of prison sentences on recidivism, 1999-3. Ottawa, Canada: Solicitor General.
  • Miller, R. L. R., & Meinzinger, M. (2014). Paralegal today: The legal team at work.
  • Neubauer, D.

    W., & Fradella, H. F. (2011). America's courts and the criminal justice system.

  • Webster, C. D., ; Jackson, M.

    A. (2007). Impulsivity: Theory, assessment, and treatment. New York: Guilford Press.

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