consequences. In determining whether the Three Strikes Law has been successful, one must look at the criticisms and the consequences of the law's implementation.

THE CRITICISMS AND THE CONSEQUENCES

There have been a number of criticisms regarding the Three Strikes Law, which tend to repeat themselves acquiring, apparently, some currency in their repetition. It would appear obvious that saying something repeatedly neither makes it true nor gives it credibility. Nonetheless, it is important to address the most repeated of these arguments:

it is not fair; it is cruel; it results in disproportionate sentencing; it will dramatically increase the prison population; it will increase trials in an already overburdened court system; it gives prosecutors too little/too much discretion; it fails to address rehabilitation; we already have recidivists statutes; "triggering offenses" (the new felony) should not be used that are "nonviolent property and drug crimes"; most of the priors are for "nonviolent" burglaries; most of the offenders are "old and past their criminal "prime" so there is little point in incarcerating them for long periods; if career criminals commit the new offense then they are not deterred so where is the effectiveness of the law.

Typically, the first category of criticisms encompass arguments that the law is not fair, it is cruel and it results in sentencing disproportionate to the crime. Let me initially place arguments about "fairness" in context. Such arguments tend to define a "fair" sentencing concept as the sentences being commensurate with the severity of the particular "triggering" crime and whether it is appropriate to use sentencing to address the risk of future criminal behavior. Such arguments tend to avoid emphasis on the offender and focus on the magnitude of the new "triggering" crime without discussing the offender's record.

The first problem with such arguments is that they disregard accepted concepts of sentencing: punishment always considers the offender in terms of his/her record measured against the crime itself for which the offender is before the court. Clearly, one who has a past pattern of anti-social behavior is a worse offender than one who has no past anti-

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