ffenses had all been non-violent, yet he was convicted under our three strikes law(Franklin 26). This is not an isolated incident either. Franklin cites numerous examples of cases where people were convicted under this legislation for non-violent offenses(26). These types of cases 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-strikes legislation has done. It has become easy to picture the long term effects of such broad legislation on our society. Although this law was enacted by the will of the people, it has not carried out the will of the people. People wanted a law that would put dangerous repeat offenders behind bars for life. Instead we are now putting an increasingly large number of non-violent offenders behind bars for extended periods of time. It would be easy to justify the cost of removing a violent menace from our society, but justifying the cost of imprisoning people who are of no threat to anyone but themselves is difficult. We must look closely at what this legislation has done so far. It has placed many more non-violent offenders in prison than violent offenders. The legislation stands to cost the state millions of dollars per year to incarcerate people of longer prison terms. Clearly the three-strikes law has not served its intended purpose it must be repealed....
