Criminal Justices

 

  • Develop a policy regarding the three strikes laws in the State of California. Address the following in your policy:
    • What alternatives would be placed in the law to give the state prosecutor more freedom to manipulate the third strike?
    • Many prosecutors load up charges against defendants to force a plea bargain. What can be done to limit or prevent this practice?
    • Will your policy allow multiple counts arising from the same incident to count as multiple strikes? (For instance, a man arrested for aggravated robbery because of the use of a weapon is charged with aggravated robbery and a felony gun possession charge. Should that count as 1 strike or 2?)
    • If one of the alternatives was supervised probation, how would you convince the public that it would be more cost-effective for the person to be supervised than incarcerated?
    • Show the public where you would be saving money by not incarcerating the perpetrator.
    • If brought up in the legislature to be an amendment to the law, could this be grandfathered in to help older inmates?
    • Could this have a backlash from the public, or would they approve? How? Why?
  • Once you are finished with the policy, draft an executive summary of the policy to be used for political decision making.
  • Use 610 scholarly resources to support the provisions of your policy. Dictionaries and encyclopedias are not scholarly sources. Look at federal and state legislation and court cases.

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