Parliament
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Senator Calls on Government to Adopt Three Strikes Law
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KINGSTON (JIS):
Monday, June 30, 2008
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Government Senator, Dennis Meadows is urging the administration to adopt the habitual offender law, so as to protect the society from "career criminals."
Popularly called the Three Strikes Law in the United States (particularly in California), it requires the courts to hand down mandatory and extended period of imprisonment to persons who have been convicted of serious criminal offences on three or more occasions.
"The stated rationale for the law is that the automatic and lengthy imprisonment of individuals who commit three or more felonies is justified on the basis that recidivists are incorrigible and chronically criminal, and must be imprisoned as a matter of public safety," Senator Meadows said.
Mr. Meadows, who was making his contribution to the 2008/09 State of the Nation Debate in the Senate, yesterday (June 27), said that the "police will tell you that 80 per cent of arrests are repeat offenders."
"I am proposing to Government that such legislation be adopted to deal with repeat gun offenders. If a man or woman is convicted of three or more gun crimes in a two to three year period, he or she must rot in jail. Three strikes and you are out! Life imprisonment," he emphasised.
Senator Meadows said he is convinced that this three strikes law would reduce gun crimes.
He informed that according to the California Department of Justice and the California Department of Corrections, for 10 years prior to the enactment of the three strikes law, homicides, rapes, robberies, assaults and burglaries totalled 8,825,353, but 10 years after the enactment of the law, these crimes dropped to 6,780,964, a 23 per cent reduction.
In addition to the three strikes law, Senator Meadows is calling on the Government to implement stricter bail terms and conditions.
"I find it difficult to understand when a man with three charges remains on the road on bail on all three charges. Something is fundamentally wrong with that. Therefore, the exigency of the times demands urgent action," Senator Meadow said.
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