My Solution to People Who Steal

[Shi Huangdi]

"Librarians also aren't going to call the cops over a missing pen. Not gonna happen."

They could if they hated you.

"Why? Otherwise, they will just keep stealing."

With Minor thefts, the damage done by them isn't enough to warrant life-in-prison as a penalty.

[David Floyd]

They could if they hated you.

I suppose. It'd be tough to prove, if the cops even bothered investigating.

With Minor thefts, the damage done by them isn't enough to warrant life-in-prison as a penalty.

The issue isn't the damage in that particular case, the issue is the habitual nature of the offense. Why let someone steal for the rest of their life? Why not just lock them up?

[Shi Huangdi]

Actually, on second thought it seems as though Dave already has his way in California:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Strikes_Law

Apprarently for repeat thefts, California punishes any theft as a felony. As a result, we get a guy sentenced to life in prison for stealing a slice of Pepperoni Pizza. Even after incidents such as this became known, California voters stilll rejected a referendum to make the Three Strikes Law apply to serious or violent crimes.

Looks like we have found the perfect match here, California and David Floyd.

[David Floyd]

Unfortunately, California is, in most ways, extremely left wing.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by JohnT

The first time anyone is caught stealing (above the age of, say, 16) and convicted, they receive an automatic sentence of a year in a medium security prison, with no possibility of parole. The second offense results in 5 years in maximum security prison, and the third offense results in life in prison.

You and Vesayan need to hook up, have a few drinks, a couple of laughs.

I was not thinking the exact same comment you made here, but I was thinking along the same lines as in, "You're as crazy as Vesayen now."

[Ted Striker]

Let the punishment fit the crime.

This is overkill. Sorry, Floyd.

[Kidlicious]

DF,

What is with you? Are you obsessed with your own property or something. Petty theft is "petty." I can't help to notice that you go on and on about liberty but you want to throw people in prison for the smallest crime.

[Ted Striker]

Besides, there isn't enough room for these people.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Besides, there isn't enough room for these people.

Your State seems to have found room for them.

[Shi Huangdi]

Of, course, the article linked to by the wiki article seems to provide a pretty good argument against CA's way:

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20020913-060859-2341r

Study: 3-strikes laws increase homicides
By Lou Marano
Published 9/16/2002 11:49 AM

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- "Three-strikes" sentencing laws actually increase homicide rates, a study by University of Alabama criminologists shows.

Although it might seem that such "tough-on-crime" legislation would increase public safety, the opposite has been found to be true. Felons who calculate they will receive the same punishment for murder as they would for having a third strike, kill their victims to avoid detection and police officers to avoid apprehension.

Many police organizations oppose "three-strikes" laws for this reason, said senior author John Sloan III, an associate professor of Justice Studies at the Birmingham campus.

The article "Unintended Consequences of Politically Popular Sentencing Policy: The Homicide-Promoting Effects of 'Three Strikes' in U.S. Cities (1980-1999)," written with assistant professors Tomislav V. Kovandzic and Lynee M. Vieraitis, appears in the current issue of Criminology & Public Policy.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, policy makers facing intense public pressure to "do something" about the high rate of violent crime, responded by strengthening laws targeting repeat offenders. Between 1993 and 1996, 25 states and the federal government enacted laws known by the baseball metaphor "three strikes and you're out." These laws generally reduce the discretion of judges by mandating severe prison sentences for third felony convictions.

The authors warn that though this intuitively might seem like effective policy, intuition alone isn't a sound basis for judging what will or won't work, at what cost, and with what side effects.

The Alabama criminologists replicated the results of "The Lethal Effects of Three-Strikes Laws," by Thomas B. Marvell and Carlisle E. Moody, which appeared in the January 2001, issue of the Journal of Legal Studies.

"According to Marvell and Moody ... criminals facing lengthy prison terms upon conviction for a third strike may take steps to reduce the chances of being caught, prosecuted, and convicted by changing their modus operandi," Sloan and his colleagues wrote. "That is, during the commission of an ordinarily non-lethal offense, an offender may decide to kill victims, witnesses or police officers to reduce the chance of apprehension."

Marvell and Moody looked at data by state.

"They found that states with three-strikes laws had significantly higher rates of homicide than states that did not during a roughly comparable period," Sloan told United Press International.

Sloan and his colleagues looked at data by city. They divided the 188 largest U.S. cities, those with populations of 100,000 or more, into two groups -- those in states with three-strikes laws and those in states without such laws.

The researchers then collected data on homicide from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports from 1980 to 1999. These data were collected from time periods both before and after the laws were passed.

"That's to control for any possible trends than might have begun prior to the passage of the laws that could have affected the crime rates afterward," Sloan said.

The criminologists also controlled for seven socio-demographic variables that previous research has shown to be important correlates of homicide: percent of people who are African-American, percent of the population aged 18 to 24, percent of female-headed households, percent of the population living below the poverty line, income inequality, percent of the population living alone, and prison population (a negative correlate).

Additionally, the researchers controlled for a number of crime variables.

"If, for example, robbery was going up, that could cause homicide to go up," Sloan said.

The results obtained by the Alabama criminologists were almost identical to those of Marvell and Moody. During the year in which a three-strikes law was passed (which the authors define as the "short term"), homicide rates increased, on average, by 13 percent to 14 percent. The cumulative effect from 1980 to 1999 (the "long term") was an increase in homicide rates in cities in the three-strikes states from 16 percent to 24 percent.

"These laws not only don't work, they increase homicides," Sloan told UPI.

Sloan said most crime control policy arises from knee-jerk reactions to particularly heinous offenses that, by definition, are not the norm. But because these crimes generate so much attention, pressure is brought to bear on legislators to "do something."

It's politically expedient to impose severe measures rather than looking at other kinds of solutions, the professor said, and too often the costs and unintended consequences of "get-tough" laws are not considered.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi


Your State seems to have found room for them.

You're trying to establish a trend based on exaggerated anecdotes.

And also, there have been cases where prisoners were released early because there was not enough room for them.

[Shi Huangdi]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


You're trying to establish a trend based on exaggerated anecdotes.

Check the article. It's policy in CA to prosecute repeat offenders on the crime of theft as felonies, which with 3 strikes qualifes for life in prison.

[Ted Striker]

I'm not talking about 3 strikes, which I had suspicion of where you were forming your views.

I'm talking about Floyd's idea of throwing people in prison on the first offense, regardless of past history, without any chance of a lighter sentence.

Regarding the three strikes law, we voted on that last year, and unfortunatley it was not repealed. But yes, there are cases like that where the 3rd strike was something petty. The 3 strikes law I support if the 3rd offense is something beyond stealing gum at the grocery store.

[MrFun]

That just means that Californians who support that are just as crazy as David, Shi.

[Kidlicious]

The thing is that they sold the law by telling everyone that repeat offenders were violent criminals. Most of the people who get three strikes are not violent criminals, yet they get punished as though they were. It's tough to get the message out to people that this is true, and a lot of people in california just figure like DF does, that if someone steals it means they are dog**** and deserve whatever they get.