Three Strike Law Research Paper

The purpose of the three-strike laws was to decrease the repeated offenders of doing the same crime over and over and to give these individuals longer prison time through the use of the mandatory minimum sentencing. Washington, California, and Florida all passed this three-strike law to ensure that these criminals were getting what they deserved and to stop the repeated act. However, all three states differ in different ways on how they enforce their three-strike models. According to Schmalleger & Smykla (2001), In Washington, all three strikes must be felonies and listed in the legislation. Some of the other states have a two-strike law but unfortunately, Washington doesn’t enforce a two-strike law. Washington three-strike law requires a life term without the possibility of parole for a person convicted for the third time of any of the “most serious crimes.” Meanwhile, in California, according to the three-strike law, the first two convictions must be from the state’s list of “strikeable” crimes. Any following felony can count as the three-strike (Schmalleger & Smykla, 2001). California also have a two-strike law, where the person can be sentenced to twice of he or she time, because of the person convicted of a

In these states the three-strike laws are very affective. They take the pressure off the society to reform these persons that are affected by the three-strike models. These societies feel as though since these persons want to keep being convicted of the same felonies two or more times then they should be punishment because they don’t want to do better for themselves (Beres & Griffith, 1998). These three-strike models affect the inmates in a negative way. For example, in the state of California the law was passed and imposed a life sentence to just about any crime. More than half of the inmates are incarcerated on some nonviolent