Some people still see California as a state for the laid-back, people who sat in movies or television, surf, tan, and otherwise live a life of pleasure. What reality provides, however, is a far different state: one with some of the most severe penalties for criminal activities, sometimes no matter how slight. This is the so-called "three strikes law- which mandates that anyone arrested and convicted of a third crime is to be literally "put away- for twenty-five years to life.
While the initial intentions were good, the law now removes from the judges any ability to make their own decisions, case by case. It is especially difficult in the case of juveniles, because "Proposition 21, which was approved by 62% of the voters in March, gave prosecutors rather than judges the right to decide whether juveniles should be tried as adults."" (DoIan 3).
Now five years old, "the three-strikes law has been responsible for taking many incorrigible criminals off the streets forever. But, laws drafted in the head of public passion often have unintended effects." (LA TIMES 1). The fact is that the so -called "hardened criminals" may actually be either petty thieves (one three-strikes law sentenced incarcerated someone who stole a slice of pizza), people who really do not pose a major threat to society, or to the poor and minorities who cannot afford a good lawyer to plead their cases for them.
California's three-strikes laws, therefore, rather than being deterrent to crime, punish most severely those who live on the fringes of society and whose criminal behavior is larcenous, but not dangerous, at best. There are times, unfortunately, in this land of plenty, when someone needs to steal pizza or someone's half eaten hamburger merely to survive.
Laws are usually made by an elite class, totally unaware of the under classes their judgments most affect. It is not the responsibility of lawmakers to consider the social or economic status of those who will be affected by their laws.
