above - Dennis Kucinich and Donna Warren from FACTS


During the mid 1990s, at the tail end of a long crime wave, 23 states adopted three-strikes laws. But in most of those states, the statutes are rarely used and few prisoners are jailed under their provisions. California is different. It alone does not require the third strike to be a violent or even serious crime.

California's three-strikes law was adopted by referendum in a wave of public outrage after the 1993 murder of Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old who was abducted from a slumber party in her home by a twice-convicted kidnapper out on parole.

Text from:
Three Strikes and You're In For Life
By Peter Vilbig

Stream Shane Audio

Tough love mom goes to criminal justice system for help…
Run time 6:15

Criminologists question such assertions, pointing out that crime plummeted nationally during the 1990s, and in some states with no three-strikes law at about the same rate as in California. In New York, for example, where there is no three-strikes law, violent crime also dropped by 40 percent during the same period.

Opponents of three-strikes attribute the drop in crime to a decrease in the number of young people—who tend to commit crimes at higher rates than older people—and to the superheated economy in the 1990s, which put many to work who might have turned to crime out of economic desperation.

They say that the latest rise in crime reflects the troubled U.S. economy, with unemployment that remains stuck at about 6 percent. Preliminary figures for the first six months of 2002 released by the FBI showed a 1.3 percent jump in overall crime, and steeper increases of 2.3 percent for murders, and 4.2 percent for burglaries and auto thefts.
Text from:
Three Strikes and You're In For Life
By Peter Vilbig

California judges have used the statute frequently, sentencing more than 7,500 people under its terms. Another 31,900 defendants have seen their sentences doubled under the law's provision for second-strike crimes.
Text from:
Three Strikes and You're In For Life
By Peter Vilbig

In 1997, Dennis "flip-flop" Kucinich:

"voted in favor of a juvenile justice bill (HR 3) that would allow children as young as 13 to be tried in adult courts and sent to jail in adult prisons. He also introduced an amendment to another juvenile justice bill in 1999 (he ultimately voted against the bill, which passed) that called for expanding record keeping and broad dissemination of information about juvenile offenders. The amendment–which was strongly opposed by the ACLU and other human rights and civil liberty groups but supported by the Fraternal Order of Police–instituted statewide computer systems for compiling and sharing youth offenders’ records. The new system helped spread youth offenders’ records to federal and state officials including the FBI, the National Crime Information Center, courts, police and schools around the country–including schools to which offenders sought admission."

http://www.isreview.org/issues/32/kucinich.shtml

If anyone can manage to rack up THREE felony convictions, violent or not, something is seriously wrong.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get actually convicted of a felony?

Three chances is way more than fair.

The usual crew of weasels used to be content to just throw ridicule at this upstart Kucinich but now they are digging into the smear bag and going into damage generation. We better have a people's body guard around this man if he ever does threaten the process because he might really have some scruples and cannot be compromised.

My comments have nothing to do with Kucinich. I'm sure he's a fine well-meaning guy but he's utterly and totally irrelevant. He does not nor will he ever be a viable choice for President.

I'd never waste a breath campainging against him.

However, the three strikes concept is obviously a sound one. The only real argument that might be made is why not two strikes.

To attck the concept of three strikes is simply another transparent attack against the concept of personal responsibility.

nope.

The transparency in the bill is that it is a black and white judgment applied across the board. It is a paranoid politically mandated sentencing structure proven by empirical analysis to be less effective than originally claimed.

I

First felony could be a drug charge.

Once convicted, misdemeanors get elevated to felony, so the second could be another drug charge, even if you're not using it.

If they find a gun in the house where you're arrested, that's a third felony.

Also, you could be caught shoplifting, which is a misdemeanor, but becomes a felony if you have a prior felony conviction.

A smart lawyer can get you out of this bind, but, public defenders might screw up and let you get put away for a long time.

The problem here is that the laws were first written to allow judges the opportunity to maximize penalties, but 3 strikes forces judges to maximize them even when it's not warranted.

but give fresca some due, perhaps she/he was referring to the corporate world?