Impact of Criminology on the three Strike Law Research Paper

Impact of Criminology on the three Strike Law - Research Paper Example These laws have been implemented in quite an uneven manner and have impacted the financial and population side of prison and have even impacted the way the judiciary was functioning. According to the law, if an individual has conducted a crime once and has been held responsible for committing the crime again, he/she may serve twice the length of jail time he should serve for committing a particular crime. The law further states that if the individual has been held responsible for the third time, he should face sentence period of 25 to life or thrice the amount of jail time he is entitled to for committing a particular crime. The law states that the nature of the crime has to be serious and violent in nature. Crimes that were considered as serious in nature under this law includes: rape, robbery of a house hold while having the intention to conduct an assault and looting a home. 1 This source was used to obtain information about the history of the law and the various components of the law. When three strike laws is not applied, criminals serve 50% of their jail time and are even provided relaxation in jail time due to their good conduct, this law has made it essential for criminals to serve 80% of their jail time. This law even denies the use of alternative correctional programs such as drug therapy programs and sentences criminals to jail. Those who were in the favor of this law stated that this law can save hard earned money of the taxpayers which is spent while a criminal is injected evacuated from the justice system. They even believe that when a criminal is allowed to leave the jail, he causes increased cost for the family of the victims. Those who were against this law, believed that this law was not just and very expensive for the justice system. They believed so because the law was treating criminals of different levels in the same manner. The opponents were right in their analysis because several criminals were held responsible and assigned a jail time of 25 to life for conducting very low level crimes such as stealing bicycles. After the first five years of the passage of the law, the law was highly protested as opponents figured out that only 1% of the individuals who were convicted under this law were murderers and the two thirds of these individuals were those who had conducted small property crimes (Carangelo, 2002, p.57).2 2 This source provides information about the reasons why individuals are against the law and how has the law performed five years after it was passed. Body The main purpose of designing a law such as the three strike law was to ensure that the streets of US were safe without felons who conduct repeated crimes. This law has been greatly exercised in the jurisdiction of California and has experienced heavy criticism since it was accepted as a law during 1993. Researchers, theorists, academic criminologists and attorneys have repeatedly condemned the law as they believe that the law is increase cost, is not j ustified and does not achieve the purpose for which it was made. These laws are recognized as recidivist laws; this means that these laws are created to elevate the amount of penalties for those criminals who continuously commit crime (Walsh, 2007, p.138).3 The jail time that repeat