economic impact of Three Strikes, the issue is not whether prison is the best way to deal with the crime problem. The issue is whether Three Strikes is responsible for an economically unfeasible or unjustifiable increase in prisons and prison population. The answer is NO.

Another argument is that the court system will stagger and collapse under the load of Three Strikes trials. There is no question that at its inception, some people who before could have obtained some "deal" resulting in little or no time were now going to trial. There is no question that this initially resulted in many second and third strike cases going to trial but I would pose several questions for the critics. Are the critics saying these people would not have gone to trial if there were no Three Strikes sentencing consequence? Experience tells me that many of these people would have gone to trial regardless of the enactment of Three Strikes. Are the critics saying Three Strikes forces defendants to go to trial because they cannot get probation or a low term? The public can and has answered such questions. This is part of what is perceived as wrong with our system and what is in fact wrong. We cannot and should not let the community pay the price for recidivism because we want to or can avoid a trial. In any event, it was expected that over time the judicial and legal community would adapt to the new reality. They have. Does anyone have statistics to show they haven't?

At the time Three Strikes was proposed and passed there were projections from critics that trials would double as a result. Such predictions ignore the reality of the trial court system. There are only so many trial judges and they are all working every day on cases. In other words, those courts are full. They could not double their output even if they were so inclined. The question as to the impact on trial loads could only be answered by an analysis on the trial rate of cases eligible for three strikes prior to the advent of the law as opposed to the trial rate for three strikes eligible cases after the advent of the law. Another way of phrasing the question would be: are more of these types of cases going to trial now than would have gone to trial before the law?

Next Page
or go to... 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20
21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39
40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48