Three strikes and you're out?

[jimnjana]

What about 65 strikes... I cannot understand how this guy was not locked up prior to say maybe the 59th arrest...

Man Arrested For 65th Time After Holding Woman And Her Children Hostage « CBS Chicago

 

[harley]

Is that a real story? It was so poorly written I'm not sure. With all the typos and missing words, maybe they meant the 5th time or the 6th time and accidently hit 65 instead. I'll have to wait for follow up from a professional organization before I believe it.

 

[Dimsumkid]

Is that a real story? It was so poorly written I'm not sure. With all the typos and missing words, maybe they meant the 5th time or the 6th time and accidently hit 65 instead. I'll have to wait for follow up from a professional organization before I believe it.

Does this help? NBC Chicago too...doesn't seem like spell checking is a priority with news anymore.

Man Arrested for 65th Time Charged With Assault | NBC Chicago

 

[urn2bfree]

I am always bewildered whenever someone complains about 3 strikes rules because supposedly someone gets punished really badly "just for stealing a slice of pizza." Uh, no...no one is ever severely punished just for doing any one crime- it is for doing the crime on top of 2 prior crimes...just as a baseball game is not won just by laying down a bunt, a lot of other things have to happen to allow for big things to flow from singularly unimpressive events. If someone has not learned their lesson after 2 crimes, why should we believe they are rehabilitatable after 3 or 4, or 65?

 

[harley]

Because people are individuals, and each situation needs to be judged in it's own context. Three strike laws are lazy and sloppy ways of dealing with people and crime. Especially now that there are so many crimes on the books that everyone in the country is guilty of something pretty much every minute of the day. I'm not defending this guy. According to what I read he needs to be in jail. But I rank three strike laws right up there with zero tolerance policies. Just ways to avoid having to actually think.

 

[urn2bfree]

Three strikes laws don't have to preclude thinking if written properly--they should just empower thinking--the sentencing judge should consider harsher punishment for repeat offenders--example- petty theft has a limited penalty--but if some guy has committed 1000 petty thefts, theft number 1001 should not have a limited penalty- that theif needs more stern punishment to accomplish at least the first two goals of a justice system and to my mind the two most important ones:
1)protect society
2)deter future crimes
3)rehabilitate criminals to be productive
4)punish bad guys

 

[jimnjana]

Three strikes laws don't have to preclude thinking if written properly--they should just empower thinking--the sentencing judge should consider harsher punishment for repeat offenders--example- petty theft has a limited penalty--but if some guy has committed 1000 petty thefts, theft number 1001 should not have a limited penalty- that theif needs more stern punishment to accomplish at least the first two goals of a justice system and to my mind the two most important ones:
1)protect society
2)deter future crimes
3)rehabilitate criminals to be productive
4)punish bad guys

+1

 

[GregLee]

I am always bewildered whenever someone complains about 3 strikes rules because supposedly someone gets punished really badly "just for stealing a slice of pizza." Uh, no...no one is ever severely punished just for doing any one crime- it is for doing the crime on top of 2 prior crimes...

So you want us to understand that it's stealing that third slice of pizza which is the killer?

 

[samclem]

Three strike laws are lazy and sloppy ways of dealing with people and crime. . . . But I rank three strike laws right up there with zero tolerance policies. Just ways to avoid having to actually think.

Agreed, but I think most of these laws are citizen/legislature reactions to perceived lenient sentencing by judges (that is, sentencing that was too lenient for community standards). So, the judges are given discretion to a point, but when the offender commits the third offense, the iron (and dumb) hand of the community takes over. Why does a person with two strikes steal a piece of pizza, knowing the consequences in his particular case? Again, maybe a case of "We ain't in here 'cause we smart."

 

[growing_older]

So you want us to understand that it's stealing that third slice of pizza which is the killer?

No, of course not. It's the pattern of repeat deliberate criminal behavior, including three times being caught. Should we just allow people to steal pizza as much as they want, because it's only pizza. See how that works out. How about commit as much crime as you want, but be sure you have a hard luck story in case you get caught. I don't like the way that's working out either.

 

[Leonidas]

Again, maybe a case of "We ain't in here 'cause we smart."

Almost a winner. But it's not a matter of stupidity as much as one of anti-social behavior. Prisons have plenty of smart people, and industrious people, and even industrious smart people, but almost all of them just don't want to follow the rules of normal society.

So you want us to understand that it's stealing that third slice of pizza which is the killer?

If it was your pizza place, and everybody got to steal one slice, how long would you be in business?

 

[GregLee]

See how that works out.

You tell me how it works out. You're the one who thinks we should put people in prison for stealing 3 pieces of pizza.

If it was your pizza place, and everybody got to steal one slice, how long would you be in business?

You tell me. How long?

I'm not in retail, but I have read that retail stores do set aside part of their budgets for pilferage. Somehow, many seem to stay in business. regardless. It's not the end of the world for a pizza place if occasionally someone steals a piece of pizza. It's just not.

 

[growing_older]

It's not the end of the world for a pizza place if occasionally someone steals a piece of pizza. It's just not.

No, but it is the end of the world if we allow people who are inclined to steal (and rob and assault and murder) do crime with little to no repercussions. I'd be happy with laws that put habitual repeat offenders away for longer periods, including life for those who seem irredeemable. But the justice system hasn't had much success with that either, so public outcry has resulted in some rather blunt tools with three strikes laws. They aren't perfect. I'd like them to be improved. But in the meantime, I'm not willing to abandon them because sometimes a third strike might be a lesser crime. If you cannot restrain yourself after two convictions, my tolerance of criminal behavior is greatly reduced. That's a pattern and I don't think we should have to wait until the third crime is a murder to lock the habitual repeat offender where he can no longer prey on society. Pizza or not.

By the way, third strike laws are usually for three felonies, so misdemeanor swiping of pizza would not count. I assume you are using that for argument's sake.

 

[Leonidas]

I'm not in retail, but I have read that retail stores do set aside part of their budgets for pilferage. Somehow, many seem to stay in business. regardless. It's not the end of the world for a pizza place if occasionally someone steals a piece of pizza. It's just not.

All those stolen goodies add up after a while. U.S. retailers lost an estimated $40 Billion in 2010, that's 1.5% of total retail sales. Tack on the added expense of all the anti-theft devices the stores buy and maintain, and it does add up to a significant expense.

It's not the end of the world to steal a piece of pizza. But most honest people are tired of paying the bills for the dishonest ones.

 

[Mulligan]

All those stolen goodies add up after a while. U.S. retailers lost an estimated $40 Billion in 2010, that's 1.5% of total retail sales. Tack on the added expense of all the anti-theft devices the stores buy and maintain, and it does add up to a significant expense.

It's not the end of the world to steal a piece of pizza. But most honest people are tired of paying the bills for the dishonest ones.

I can stand the judicial system going soft on crime, but I also can't stand have to spend a bunch of tax payer dollars incarcerating these criminals. A good public caning session would solve both problems. I never been hit with one of those canes but I bet after 3 swats your backside would be telling your fingers to quit taking stuff that's not yours! I know, send me back to the middle ages where I belong.

 

[W2R]

I can stand the judicial system going soft on crime, but I also can't stand have to spend a bunch of tax payer dollars incarcerating these criminals. A good public caning session would solve both problems. I never been hit with one of those canes but I bet after 3 swats your backside would be telling your fingers to quit taking stuff that's not yours! I know, send me back to the middle ages where I belong.

Me too! I couldn't agree more. Alternately, isolate them in a barbed wire surrounded region carved out of some of the northern/midwestern states and let them establish their own government there.

 

[flyfishnevada]

We should get all the "victimless" criminals out of the prisons. Either decriminalize the act or slap a transponder on their ankle and put them under house arrest and let them feed themselves. Save the prisons for those that really deserve it and are worth us taxpayer's funding to keep them out of society.

As for the multiple offender's, too many people, including a lot of judges, seem to have forgotten what the term "victim" means. It's not the child molester or knife wielding nut job whose mommy and daddy didn't love them enough. I respect due process, but you have to balance that with public safety. I think you get enough of these criminals in front of you and here the ridiculous excuses and reasoning their attorney's spew and some people just start to feel for them and forget the criminal justice system is as much about punishing/rehabilitating the criminal as it is about protecting society from them.

 

[GregLee]

Alternately, isolate them in a barbed wire surrounded region carved out of some of the northern/midwestern states and let them establish their own government there.

I think I've stumbled into a nest of Heinlein fans. Heinlein wrote Coventry (short story) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
about such a place, and he also imagined that public whippings would be reinstated in his novel that was made into that awful movie about the alien spiders, with Casper van Dien. (Edit: That was Starship Troopers.)

 

[GregLee]

By the way, third strike laws are usually for three felonies, so misdemeanor swiping of pizza would not count. I assume you are using that for argument's sake.

I was continuing the pizza example given by urn2bfree in post #4 of this thread.

 

[W2R]

I think I've stumbled into a nest of Heinlein fans. Heinlein wrote Coventry (short story) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
about such a place, and he also imagined that public whippings would be reinstated in his novel that was made into that awful movie about the alien spiders, with Casper van Dien. (Edit: That was Starship Troopers.)

Actually, yes... that must be where I got the idea. For some time I had a complete collection of Heinlein books and had read most of them multiple times. Starship Troopers was one of my favorites. Never saw the movie.

I also liked Hawksbill Station by Robert Silverberg. This was the one in which criminals were time-traveled back to the pre-Cambrian, where they were left to survive on a nice diet of trilobites and the like.

 

[Walt34]

All those stolen goodies add up after a while. U.S. retailers lost an estimated $40 Billion in 2010, that's 1.5% of total retail sales. Tack on the added expense of all the anti-theft devices the stores buy and maintain, and it does add up to a significant expense.

It's not the end of the world to steal a piece of pizza. But most honest people are tired of paying the bills for the dishonest ones.

To take that a bit further, I am one who is not at all unhappy with paying for jails/prisons if for no other reason that the overall quality of life for those outside the walls is better and admittedly that has an intangible value one has to assign one's own priority to. After all, if they're in jail they're not committing new crimes. Outside the walls anyway.

It's a rare person who is imprisoned for committing one crime. They're in prison because they were convicted of one crime. There is a difference. Does anyone think that's the only crime they committed and that those other crimes, and the measures taken to prevent them, don't have a cost to society?

 

[GregLee]

Does anyone think that's the only crime they committed and that those other crimes, and the measures taken to prevent them, don't have a cost to society?

No, nobody thinks that. Do you think that is relevant to the 3-strikes laws question? Do you think those against 3-strikes laws think crime has no cost?

 

[harley]

Obviously, as shown by the article in the OP, if the legal system is fubared then you can't fix it with something like three strikes. If the legal system is working well, you don't need something like three strikes. I'm not arguing for leniency. I believe punishments should fit the crime. I think the guy in the article sounds like a person who is dangerous to others and should be incarcerated for society's protection. I think people who steal a slice of pizza should have to pay for it, maybe with a significant penalty added in to make it a strong lesson. And he should obviously also have to pay for the court and cop time. And sure, maybe he only got caught the once, although he's a habitual pizza slice stealer. But we can't do anything about that. You can only punish for what is provable. Life's like that. I still think 3 strikes and zero tolerance are lazy shortcuts to keep from having to deal with life's ambiguities. It can be hard and time consuming to look at the details of each case. But that's part of the job. Maybe if so many victimless activities weren't illegal there'd be more time to properly deal with real crime.

 

[ziggy29]

Obviously, as shown by the article in the OP, if the legal system is fubared then you can't fix it with something like three strikes. If the legal system is working well, you don't need something like three strikes. I'm not arguing for leniency. I believe punishments should fit the crime.

I do believe the punishment should fit the crime. But I do think the length of someone's rap sheet *is* a legitimate factor in sentencing; to the extent part of the justice system's goal is rehabilitation, it may make sense to give someone a "second chance" to get it right but not so much a fourth or fifth. People make mistakes and it's not always whether you make the mistakes that ultimately determine your character; it's whether you learn from them and become a better person after paying your dues. But all else being equal, yes, I do think a sentence for a 3rd criminal offense should be much stiffer than for a first offense. Repeat offenses show an inability to be rehabilitated, an inability to cooperate with the second chance society gave you.

But in the end, I think "three strikes" is as dumb as "zero tolerance" laws. Anything that triggers an *automatic* harsh sentence without allowing for a reasonable judge to base the sentence on the specific circumstances of each case is just denying common sense to prevail, which I think also circumvents justice.

 

[Mulligan]

Obviously, as shown by the article in the OP, if the legal system is fubared then you can't fix it with something like three strikes. If the legal system is working well, you don't need something like three strikes. I'm not arguing for leniency. I believe punishments should fit the crime. I think the guy in the article sounds like a person who is dangerous to others and should be incarcerated for society's protection. I think people who steal a slice of pizza should have to pay for it, maybe with a significant penalty added in to make it a strong lesson. And he should obviously also have to pay for the court and cop time. And sure, maybe he only got caught the once, although he's a habitual pizza slice stealer. But we can't do anything about that. You can only punish for what is provable. Life's like that. I still think 3 strikes and zero tolerance are lazy shortcuts to keep from having to deal with life's ambiguities. It can be hard and time consuming to look at the details of each case. But that's part of the job. Maybe if so many victimless activities weren't illegal there'd be more time to properly deal with real crime.

I agree with you Harley, but these people who do the minor petty stuff never have the money to pay the fines and penalties. So instead of locking these people up at tax payer expense for 30-40 k a year, I advocate 3 hard swats with a cane. Sends a painful reminder that crime doesn't pay. You could probably administer justice to about 30 people a hour in a timely manner. They could pay for their own hydrogen peroxide at home to keep the wounds from getting infected. If memory serves me Singapore has had a historically low crime rate. Correlation, perhaps? It sure would deter me from grabbing the pizza without paying for it.