ciety can justify sending adrug addict to prison for 25 years at a cost of $20,000 per year when the moneycould be used to fund drug rehabilitation centers and alternative programs forour youth. Most drug users are not in need prison, they are in need of helpfor their addictions. If a fraction of the money it would cost to imprison themis put toward drug rehabilitation programs it would save the state money, whileat the same time helping the individual. The three strikes legislation isdirectly aimed at violent crime, but its track record has shown that it hasmissed the mark by a long shot. Some offenders have been convicted for a thirdstrike on relatively small offenses. For example, a man named Steven Gordonwas convicted for his third strike after stealing a wallet that had $100dollars in it. His previous offenses had all been non-violent, yet he wasconvicted under our three strikes law(Franklin 26). This is not an isolatedincident either. Franklin cites numerous examples of cases where people wereconvicted under this legislation for non-violent offenses(26). These types ofcases just illustrate how the three strikes legislation is targeting non-violent offenders, as opposed to its goal of targeting violent criminals.After one year in effect it is easy to see what our three-strikeslegislation has done. It has become easy to picture the long term effects ofsuch broad legislation on our society. Although this law was enacted by thewill of the people, it has not carried out the will of the people. Peoplewanted a law that would put dangerous repeat offenders behind bars for life.Instead we are now putting an increasingly large number of non-violentoffenders behind bars for extended periods of time. It would be easy to justifythe cost of removing a violent menace from our society, but justifying the costof imprisoning people who are of no threat to anyone but themselves isdifficult. We must look closely at what this legislation h...
