Description
Key Assignment
Assignment Guidelines
First, revise your Week 4 Key Assignment based on your instructor’s feedback and peer responses.
In Week 4, you developed a policy regarding the three strikes laws in the State of California. Now, the state has decided to try to revamp other systems within the government to accommodate more diverse populations. The three strikes laws are now causing a problem for the correctional institutions in the United States. Now, there is an older inmate population because of the aging of the population.
Locate and analyze the current problems pertaining to the three strikes laws and incarceration.
For this assignment, you will develop a policy change to address prisoners who have been sentenced under these three strike laws and have reached the age of 60.
In your policy, address the following:
Describe your proposed policy in detail, and provide the specific language you would propose to be part of any statute or regulation that results from your proposed policy.
What information could you provide to the community and the state legislature to implement such a policy change?
What would be the advantages of this policy? Explain and provide support for your arguments.
What would be the disadvantages? Explain and provide support for your arguments.
You should use the same format that you used for your Week 4 Key Assignment Draft policy.
Address the following in 1-2 pages:
What effect would your corrections policy have on the state budget and state taxes? Explain.
How have you ensured that your second policy effectively utilized the feedback you received for your three strikes policy from Week 4? Be specific and explain in detail.
Remember to support your policy with scholarly and academic resources.
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. Find resources on how to write academically and use APA citations, including an example of Masters-level writing, in the Writing Style Guide for Masters Students.
Requirements: Medium
Policy Regarding Three Strikes Laws in California State
Students name Santayna Folkes
Professors name Sonia Stovall
Institution name Colorado Technical University
Course name CJUS625
Date 3/19/2023
Policy Regarding Three Strikes Laws in California State
Introduction
The law of three strikes is a rule that extends and imposes sentences on people sentenced to certain crimes (Medel, R. M., Velásquez, D., & Pérez, D, 2023). Usually on felonies on three separate occasions. There has been the implementation of this law in many states across the USA, including the state of California. Concerns have been raised regarding the effectiveness of the three strikes law in reducing crimes, its impact on the prison system, and incarcerating cost for non-offenders. Ewing the California case, the defendant experienced the third strike after he committed a grand theft crime which is a nonviolent crime, and later he was subjected to the law of three strikes.
This case simply highlights whether sentencing is mandatory for nonviolent crimes and whether it is applicable to use taxpayer money in incarcerating nonviolent and older offenders. This proposal for policy aims at reforming the laws of three strikes in California, which needs people who have committed felonies adding up to three to have life in prison of 25 years (Alkon, C, 2019). The law has resulted in many individuals being incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, resulting in a heavy burden on tax to California. The policies proposed to aim at giving the state prosecutors reducing the number of nonviolent offenders and more discretion regarding charging individuals in systems of prisons. The policy seeks to minimize the prosecutors practices ”loading up charges on defendants and providing other alternatives in incarceration like supervised probation. Increase state prosecutors discretion.
Executive summary;
This policy proposal aims at reforming the law of three strikes in California, which requires offenders who committed more than three felonies to be sentenced to prison for 25 years. There have been results of incarceration of people who have committed nonviolent crimes, which has inflicted a heavy tax burden in California’s states to maintain these inmates in prisons. The proposed policy aims to provide state prosecutors a lot of discretion when charging offenders and reduce the number of offenders who have committed nonviolent crimes. It limits the prosecutor’s practice of ‘loading up’ defendants’ charges and provides alternatives such as incarceration like supervised probation (Lindauer, M., & Postman, E, 2021). The policy proposal aims to reduce prison overcrowding, thus reducing the need to construct new prisons to hold prisoners. The money spared on the release of inmates who have committed nonviolent crimes can be directed to other vital areas like schools and health sectors.
Policy provisions
Increasing act discretion to state prosecutors.
This policy aims at giving state prosecutors a lot of freedom in third strike manipulation by allowing them to have the power to lower the charges so as not to be considered as the third strike. This will facilitate in reducing the number of offenders that are incarcerated nonviolent (Gunderson, A, 2022). In this case, the prosecutor will evaluate all relevant facts favorable to the defendant and be placed in court to present those facts in a dispassionate, ethically transparent, fair, and firm manner. Prosecutors are central actors in the rule of laws implementation. Reducing the number of offenders who have committed nonviolent crimes will lower the population of the population at prisons in California. This will save millions of dollars spent in prisons to cater to this high number of prisoners, and they might be shifted to other crucial infrastructure like hospitals and schools. This law incarcerates the offenders for an extended period, which is very costly.
They are limiting ‘loading up’ practice charges.
This policy prevents prosecutors from forcing plea bargains through ‘loading up’ charges. The policy proposes limiting counts arising from the same incident and being counted as a single incident (Ortman, W, 2023). Plea bargains are the ones that facilitate state prosecutors avoiding trials. They usually are shunned because they are costly, time-consuming, and time-consuming. The policy will prevent the costs arising from these plea bargains from being forced by prosecutors. The plea bargain can be limited by limiting making a guilty plea intelligent or voluntary. The defendant should act freely, understand their actions, and knowingly decline or accept the plea bargain. This is done with ought physical coercion, and there should not be breaching of previous agreements by the prosecutors. Prosecutors, conversely, have to disclose any evidence and should be favorable to the defendant.
Alternative options of sentencing.
This policy proposes alternative sentencing options, like probation supervision, for those offenders who have committed a third strike. This enhances cost-effectiveness more than offenders incarceration and can be used to convince the public of the benefits of this policy. Other options for nonviolent offenders that could be used during sentencing are; rehabilitative service, restitution, and community service (Tonry, M, 2019). This policy will facilitate saving taxpayers money. An estimate of 28000$ is the number of funds one prisoner uses to keep them in federal prison; some state prisons could even cost more than this cost. One of the benefits of this policy is eliminating the overcrowding in jails in California. Other benefits are reducing the number of crimes within society and strengthening the communities and families. This alternative reduces the corruption within the organization, whereby about 40% of the offenders are likely to return to prisons after reoffending after three years outside. These new benefits will help offenders who have committed nonviolent crimes not commit crimes again.
.
Cost savings.
By reducing nonviolent offenders in state prisons, the policy will aim to save taxpayers money by reducing personnel costs and the cost of running these prisons after the population reduction. Cost-effectiveness is attributed to others forms of sentencing like halfway houses, restitution, and community service (Silletti Murolo, A, 2020). This program eliminates the essence of building new prisons for holding the offenders, lowering the cost that could be used to develop and run these prisons. These programs are more rehabilitative and less costly. The cost of incarceration can be reduced through changing business practices like reducing the time the intimates stay in the hospital, purchasing food in bulk, and purchasing pharmaceuticals.
5. old inmates grandfathering.
This policy proposes the grandfather release of older inmates who have committed nonviolent, which facilitates helping intimates who are old and have been incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. This helps reduce the number of old prisoners in the prison system who do not like to re-offend. The policy will reduce health cost burdens as older prisoners are likely to fall sick easily. Release of older inmates who have committed nonviolent crimes helps cut these prison costs (Millemann, M., Chapman, J. E., & Feder, S. P, 2021). Out of the older prisoners who have committed nonviolent crimes like; drug trafficking, larceny, burglary, and drug possession, it will reduce overcrowding in prison and the need to construct new prisons to hold prisons as many facilities operate at a capacity of 100%. Releasing older inmates who have committed nonviolent crimes decreases the number in these detention centers. Instead, these older inmates who have committed nonviolent offenses should be subjected to other rehabilitative forms like counseling and cutting off the trigger to their crimes, like incarceration, which can rehabilitate it.
6. Public approval.
The subject will be directed to the public for approval, and it will be presented to the public to emphasize and show the benefits of reducing nonviolent offenders numbers in systems of prisons (Silletti Murolo, A, 2020). The public should be aware of several benefits, like reducing costs. Prisons incur many expenses, and there could be significant savings from imprisoning nonviolent offenders. Keeping the offenders who have committed nonviolent crimes results in several concerns like overcrowding in prisons, mental and physical health concerns, increased violence risks in prisons, and inadequate supervision of intimates in the jails.
Research has established that prisoners are less effective in inmate rehabilitation, increasing reoffending likelihood. Research indicates that about 68 of the people of the released nonviolent offenders are likely to come back to prison and commit another nonviolent crime. Technology should be put into practice in shaping this innovative policy. The strategies that should be used are through electronic monitoring of nonviolent offenders.
Conclusion.
In conclusion, the proposed policy aims to reform the law of three strikes in California by giving state prosecutors more discretion and reducing nonviolent prison offenders. The alternative options of sentencing that can be deployed in California’s prison system are; probation, diversion programs, restitution, and probation. This will enhance cost-effectiveness in prisons and reduce heavy taxation of the California people to cater to the costs of maintaining and running these prisons. There will be an urge to emphasize the need to reduce the number of offenders who have committed nonviolent crimes in prisons. Cost-effectiveness is enhanced by godfathering the older inmates who have committed nonviolent crimes, which cuts health expenses due to catering to these older inmates as they are most likely to get sick (Silletti Murolo, A, 2020). Another way of monitoring nonviolent offenders should be implemented, like electronic monitoring of their movement. Prisons are not the best option for nonviolent offenders as two out of three nonviolent crime offenders are likely to re-offend again.
References
Alkon, C. (2019). The Lost Promise of Lambert v. California. Stetson L. Rev., 49, 267.
Gunderson, A. (2022). Descriptive representation and prosecutorial discretion: Race, sex, and carceral disparities. American Politics Research, 50(6), 823-836.
Lindauer, M., & Postman, E. (2021). Beyond Non-violent Offenses: Criminal Justice Reform and Intimate Partner Violence in the Age of Progressive Prosecution. Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties, 16(3), 457-474.
Medel, R. M., Velásquez, D., & Pérez, D. (2023). Politization in labor conflict: analyzing the demands of post-authoritarian chilean strikes. Critical Sociology, 49(1), 77-96.
Millemann, M., Chapman, J. E., & Feder, S. P. (2021). Releasing Older Prisoners Convicted of Violent Crimes: The Unger Story. U. Md. LJ Race, Religion, Gender & Class, 21, 185.
Ortman, W. (2023). The Prosecution Bar. Washington University Law Review, Forthcoming.
Silletti Murolo, A. (2020). Geriatric inmates: Policy and practice. Journal of Correctional Health Care, 26(1), 4-16.
Tonry, M. (2019). Predictions of dangerousness in sentencing: Déjà vu all over again. Crime and Justice, 48(1), 439-482.
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