California Three Strikes Law “ridiculous”

What was California thinking when voters and legislators passed the Three Strikes Law?
Yes, criminals should be punished. And yes, baseball has catchy terms. But honestly, this law does more harm than good.

Aren’t we, as a state, already neck-deep into this era’s atrocious economy? Aren’t schools across the nation suffering from a lack of government funding? And aren’t we facing overwhelmingly overcrowded jails?

So what’s the catch?

The original point of the law seems to be to keep multiple-offenders from multiple-offending, which makes sense, if one looks at the law as a way of scaring criminals into being good civilians. But it’s apparent that not much thought was put into writing this law.

Picture this, a man who, in his stupidly reckless teenage years, was caught stealing on two occasions, and then ten years later got arrested for selling marijuana in order to provide for his family. Does he really, truly, honestly deserve the same fate as a murderer?

If you answered yes, you may just have a future in government. But you certainly lack the logic and empathy to succeed anywhere else in life.

Not only is the law extremely unfair, but it is impractical from both a constitutional, ethical, and economical point of view as well.

Our country’s constitution outlaws any form of “cruel or unusual punishment,” which includes gathering up thousands of bitter, belligerent, and highly bellicose human beings and cramming them into a concrete prison until the day they die.

Furthermore, even if we do decide to punish every so-called “dreg of society,” we simply can’t afford to keep them all living in sanitary conditions. To do that, we would be sacrificing money that could have otherwise gone towards schools, policemen, firemen, new roads, children’s parks, etc.

The money could even go toward programs that could help prevent bad behavior.
The people of California need to start thinking before they vote, and start sorting out their priorities.