Key Assignment Draft

This is two-part assignment-Follow-up unit is attached which is only an additional 1-2 pages

In those states with the three strikes laws, any person who has 2 felony strikes and commits another felony, whether it be violent or not, can be required to serve a sentence of 25 years to life.

Look at the case of Ewing v. California:

• Ewing v. California
  • Click on the PDF link next to the case title.

The defendant had his third strike when he committed grand theft at a golf course in Los Angeles County. This was not a violent crime but he was subject to the three strikes laws. He appealed this case up to the United States Supreme Court—and lost.

The public has always been worried about violent crime, but just how worried are citizens about nonviolent crime? With mandatory sentencing, society will have many older inmates within the prison system. In the criminal justice community, it is known that inmates “age out of crime.” Can you imagine a 68-year-old man climbing in a window or jumping an 8-foot fence? By keeping these older inmates incarcerated, is this a disservice to society?

State prosecutors have the discretion to lower the charge so that the third offense would not be considered a third strike. For this assignment, you are a policy maker in yourstate legislature. You are concerned about the heavy tax burden on your constituents. The cost of the actual running of the prison and costs of personnel will rise.

You are also up for re-election, and the feedback that you have received from your constituents has shown that they are dissatisfied with the law that now stands. They are afraid of violent crimes, not just felonies, and are very aware that the last crime committed by the perpetrator does not have to be a violent crime. They are also worried about the use of their tax dollars to incarcerate nonviolent offenders.

Assignment Guidelines

• Address the following in 5–7 pages:
  • 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 6–10 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.
• Be sure to reference all sources using APA style.

Please submit your assignment.

For assistance with your assignment, please use your text, Web resources, and all course materials.

Other Information

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Instructions:

150 points

15pts page requirement

15pts policy development

15pts Alternatives addressed (costs of alternatives, is it saving money, what happens to the saved money, if any?)

15pts Loading of charges (how to prevent this practice) and does your policy allow multiple counts from the same incident to count as multiple strikes?

15pts Money saved by not using an alternative to incarceration

15pts Grandfathering of the policy/law for inmates who were already sentenced and are older. How do you decide if they get any leniency if your policy allows for it?

15pts Public Backlash (what might the public not like and why, based on research. Are these fears founded? Is the media sensationalizing?

15pts Public Approval (what incentives do you include to convince the public or state legislature to implement your policy?)

15pts executive summary

15pts 6-10 scholarly resources/Look at federal and state legislation and court cases (dictionaries/encylopedias are not scholarly sources).

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Instructor’s Comments:

An executive summary, like the one you’ll write into your IP4 and perhaps discuss in your DB4, is 3 things:

• Describe the problem that’s being addressed (here, 3 strikes)
• Write a statement about why the current approach to the problem needs to be changed or what part of it needs to be change
• Give your recommendation for action
• This summary is the basic start to your outline and the policy you’ll develop as part of your assignment.
  

  Policy Briefs

  Excerpt from UNC-CH:A policy brief presents a concise summary of information that can help readers understand, and likely make decisions about, government policies. Policy briefs may give objective summaries of relevant research, suggest possible policy options, or go even further and argue for particular courses of action

See the announcement for the resources from Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) for a great description of a problem and samples of action plans.

Does your policy compare costs for the alternatives?

Address prisoners who were sentenced under three strikes laws and who are now 60 or over.

Is your policy specific? Did you use specific language or a verbal illustration for any new regulation or statute (law) that might come of our your policy proposal?

What information are you giving to the public?

What information are you giving to the state legislature?

What if a prison is privatized? How does that affect your policy? Does the

private prison enforce a quota of inmates with the state and

penalty if the inmate quota isn’t met?

Pros and Cons? Is your argument supported with research?