Mercury News editorial: State must fix three strikes law - San Jose Mercury News
Blogger Bob's comment: As we struggle to pay the price for incarceration in California (and now in San Bernardino County), the local costs of more prisoners being released early due to overcrowding, maybe we need to start the dialogue [and trim the demagoguery]. Stanford University's Three Strikes Project, led by law professor Michael Romano, is trying to get on the ballot an initiative for the November 2012 ballot [whether the proposition sews the seeds of its own demise remains to be seen and how it may drive tough-on-crime voters to the polls that might not otherwise come out this year may be a concern to some]. The Three Strikes Project's stated aim is to apply the law to only serious or violent third offenders which would save money and steer the law closer to what voters intended back in 1994. The three strikes law has been used by some district attorneys to give life sentences to about 4,000 inmates who committed nonviolent crimes. The price? Per a 2010 state report, the total cost of applying the Three Strikes Law at nearly $20 billion, or roughly $35,000 a year per inmate. No one need go further than San Bernardino County DA's [Mike Ramos] traveling road show video that measures departmental success based on the number of years people are incarcerated--its like the phony assurances the US Defense Department tried to give the public during the Vietnam conflict when body counts were used to try and measure success. We should be talking about policies which improve public safety. Does incarcerating non violent offenders always make us safer. Why can't we do house arrest for convicted felons like Ramos did for the San Manual character convicted of attempted murder--opps I forgot, his Tribe were amongst Mike Ramos' supporters?
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