UPDATE: Parts two and three of the series. Treads similar ground but definitely worth a listen, just about 5 minutes each.
———
While the title may lead you to believe this is a baseball post, it is not. I will leave those inane ramblings about “the nations pastime” to Elijah.
Instead. this post is to direct your attention to a 3-part series that just begun last night on NPR by Ina Jaffe about California’s three-strike law. It’s a thought-provoking, and I think, an even-handed approach to the topic. Three Strikes (if you don’t know, or don’t want to follow the earlier link) is a law that basically states that if you’ve been previously convicted of two crimes, then if you are convicted of a third act your minimum sentence will be 25-years to life. It is a law that was designed to keep repeat offenders off the streets… and it certainly does that. The critique is that there are many cases where the three crimes are petty and certainly not violent. The NPR segment documents an instance where a mother, intent on giving “tough love” to her son, pressed charges against him for stealing some of her jewelry which became his first two strikes, only to see him get a third strike and go off to jail for 25 years.
I personally find this a tricky situation. I definitely want to see criminals go to jail, but I also think it should apply more towards violent crimes then smaller ones. But I also see logic in what Mike Reynolds, the citizen behind the original initiative for the law, who says:
All they have to do is stop doing crime. That’s all we ask. And they’ll never be charged under three strikes. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
It does make sense. It’s not really an oppressive law, we all have the ability to avoid it. And the fact of the matter is that we all have the choice to be criminals or not and three opportunites to decide if that is what you want to do with your life seems enough. Do some people have tougher lives or situations that make that choice seemingly harder than others? Yes. Does that mean the law is unfair? No. The question I think is compelling is whether it is just or not.
The Department of Justice estimated that the average sentence for a convicted rapist is 11.8 years, and actual time served amounts to around 5.4 years. Does it seem just that a person who stole items from a retailer on three occasions could get 25 years, whereas someone who only once had been convicted of rape serves just over 5? It doesn’t seem just to me, but I think that is a reflection of our poor sentencing on rape crimes rather than injustice in the three strikes law. Three strikes is a merciless statute in the midst of a system that is riddled with arbitrary guidelines and favorable sentences for celebrities and such… so maybe we need more merciless statutes. The NPR segment pointed out that prosecutors have the ability to decide on some cases whether a crime should be classified as eligible for a third strike. But that just leaves it up to the whim of the individual prosecutor, which again shows the subjective nature of our system. Perhaps if we had less ability to be flexible it would make for more just sentencing, but at the expense of mercy.
But what about mercy, and forgiveness and things of that spiritual realm? Is there room in our legal system for that? How can our faiths play out in that way? My short short answer would be that I don’t think mercy and forgiveness are implicitly tied to lack of punishment or consequences. Christ forgave the sinner on the cross next to him… the man still ended up crucified and dead though. And in this world my view would be that we have a compassionate-less legal system where punishment is measured out despite whether the victims or others desire mercy to be given. The task then would be to make sure our laws are just, and not leave that up to the sentencing process.
I look forward to the rest of the series, and invite you to check it out and chime in with your thoughts.
Mark
Sgt. Grumbles
Elijah
Pete
Mark,
Thanks for labeling my posts on baseball inane…still upset about that loss to Aston Villa two weekends ago?
I found this statement, “It is a law that was designed to keep repeat offenders off the streets,” rather interesting. I think it is likely that it was also designed to deter the offenses.
What I found more interesting, even troubling is this statement: “Christ forgave the sinner on the cross next to him… the man still ended up crucified and dead though.” You didn’t lie about this issue, what you said was fact, but that you are using an event like that to be used as justification for punishment/consequences in a spiritual context is a little careless.
We will inevitably have different views on this issue as a whole – I am more compelled in this sort of situation to extend grace and leave the chance that I will be hurt open. You might say, “But what about others being hurt?” That’s a valid question and I simply believe in principles that carry out implications in the broader context.
Still, the points you bring up are good to consider and I don’t think there is an easy solution. I think it comes back to the principles that our society is based on, like asking ourselves the question, “How bad can we be without consequences?” rather than, “How good can I be in order to bring about human flourishing?”
I don’t see the example of the “thief on the cross” still dying despite being spiritually forgiven as a “justification” for whatever legal process he was or was not given, or the laws under which he was convicted. It simply means that the consequences of actions in the spiritual realm are quite different, necessarily so, than in the spiritual realm.
Elijah, you may be right that it is intended to deter offenses as well, but I doubt it… if it does deter offenses it’s because certain characters aren’t out on the street to perform them. I think criminals tend towards crime not based on how bad they know the punishment will be, but because they are flawed people.
And thanks Tim, that’s what I was getting at. Consequences of sin remain, despite grace and forgiveness. If you have an affair, there are consequences to that regardless of your spouse’s or Christ’s forgiveness. But in trying to straddle both the spiritual and natural realms I think a law like three strikes is valid in that it provides structure to those who don’t traffic in dispensing mercy, while still allowing forgiveness and mercy to be shown (outside of the consequences as stated above). Not sure if I made that make sense or not…
Mark, if you ever get around to finishing “A conflict of visions,” Thomas Sowell writes a lot about justice, and what he says relates to this directly. He concedes that it would be preferable for a judge to take into account a criminal’s upbringing, circumstances, needs, etc. in meting out an individual-specific punishment (such as in the case of the boy with the tough-loving mother, the judge could take this into account and not be binded by a three-strikes type of law). However, those with the constrained vision do not trust fellow man to make such judgments- given the fallibility of men, the constrained vision will take the collateral damage of the occasional overly strict (or overly light) sentence if it means that judges are restrained from acting arbitrarily, assuming that they would use this power for harm more often than good. I had never thought of that before, but it makes perfect sense to me, and I find it perfectly agreeable given our fallen nature.
On another note, the one knock I’ve heard on the three-strikes law that I find compelling is that convicted criminals with two strikes may be more likely to commit a more heinous crime the third time around than they would otherwise. For example, a two-time offender planning to rob a convenience store might choose to kill anyone who gets in his way, figuring that he’s going to be locked up for a long, long time if he gets caught regardless. You’ll have to tell me if this point gets made on NPR, and what you think of it.
All I know is I ain’t going back to prison.