Application of Classical School Of Criminology in Three-Strike Laws and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
The classical school of criminology holds that crime results from people’s free will or liberation. The classical school of criminology emphasizes on using proportional, swift, and certain punishment to combat perpetuation of a criminal offense in a state. The classical school of criminology supports law enforcement agencies to apply determinate sentencing such as life imprisonment, death penalty or sentence, three-strike, and mandatory minimum sentencing in preventing criminal operations in a country. The three-strike legislation targets habitual offenders and permit sentence of career criminals in multiple states in the US ( Engel et al., 2019 ). The three-strike law intends to minimize severe criminal offense while incapacitating and deterring other people or criminals from perpetrating similar offense in the country. For instance, three-strike legalization of California provides that a criminal who commits an offense after two conviction or have two strikes, the third felony result in a minimum of 25 years jail sentence or life imprisonment ( Engel et al., 2019 ). The classical school of criminology emphasizes due process, such as the appealing rights of a person and fair trial in the court of law.
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Regarding the classical paradigm of deterrence, averting crime occurs when the anticipated cost or expense of punishment surpasses the benefits of committing the offense. The deterrence or crime prevention process entails certainty, severity, and punishment celerity ( Engel et al., 2019 ). Accordingly, imposing severe sanctions and punishment certainty help in preventing the perpetuation of criminal activities in a state.
Contemporarily, punishment certainty depends on the possibility of arrest and penalties of apprehension or detention. The formal imposition of sanction requires reporting the crime to the legal authority that initiates effective prosecution and court sentencing. Because of imprisonment results of various felonies or crime, policies that increase incarceration certainty for prisoners serving mandatory prison sentences may result in minimal impacts on the overall punishment certainty ( Engel et al., 2019 ). However, severe punishment help in preventing future crime by controlling or regulating the decision making of criminals in a state. Consequently, imposing severe punishment on criminals helps in deterring or preventing future crime practically.
How Three-Strike Laws and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Strategies Have Changed Criminal Justice Responses to Drug Offenders
Three strike laws general deterrence by imposing long term jail sentence or life imprisonment of criminals like drug peddlers. However, the application of three-strike legislation in preventing future crime does not reduce serious crime like a homicide because drug peddlers assassinate witnesses to evade life imprisonment. The legislation requires judges, prosecutors, and parole to address drug cases harshly to prevent drug peddling in various American streets ( Engel et al., 2019 ). “War on Drugs” in America entails street-level apprehension of drug peddlers who engage in severe drug offenses such as violation or defilement of title 21 through participating in drug manufacturing, distribution, and intentional processing of drugs to supply a significant quantity of illegal substances to consumers and vendors in different parts of the state or internationally. The three-strike laws promote long term imprisonment of drug peddlers to prevent severe drug offense presently and in the future ( Barkow, 2019 ). Application of three-strike legislation and mandatory minimum sentencing in curbing drug trafficking and consumption results in high chances of sentencing drug offenders. Consequently, the three-strike legislation and mandatory minimum sentencing increase the number of prisoners with drug offenses in various correction centers or prisons in the US, causing a significant reduction in drug offenses in the US.
Street-level detention or arrest results in a decline in the market of crack cocaine substances or drugs in various states in the US because drug offenders strive to evade life imprisonment through the three-strike legislation. The use of mandatory minimum sentencing and three-strike laws impose severe penalties on drug offenders to deter other people from committing further drug offense in the US ( Barkow, 2019 ). Particularly, three-strike laws result in long-term imprisonment of people with a successive drug offense in the country. Consequently, three-strike laws and mandatory minimum sentencing help in disrupting drug trafficking and consumption in the country.
How Three-Strike Laws and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Strategies Causes Population Disparity of Offenders in the Prisons and Jails.
Mandatory minimum sentencing and three-strike legislations promote long-term sentencing of drug offenders and robbers in America. Long-term sentencing of drug offenders and the mandatory minimum sentencing result in the expansion of prisons’ population from 20,000 inmates in 1980 to approximately 189,000 prisoners by 2016 in America ( Mauer, 2018 ). Accordingly, mandatory provision results in 55% of inmates serving a long-term sentence in different federal prisons of the US.
Regardless of illicit drug quantity, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three-strike legislation promoted the incarceration of the people of color as opposed to the whites with a similar drug offense. For instance, multiple prisons in the US have a considerable number of Latinos and African Americans resulting from mandatory minimum sentencing because of drug offenses. The strict sentencing policies result in high rate incarceration of black women as opposed to white women in the US. Girls represent a larger population in the juvenile justice system of America. The sentencing project holds that girls represent 15% of the youths in the juvenile justice system in the country. Girls of color form a larger population of youths in the residential placement of America. Accordingly, girls of color (African American) between 12 to 17 years have a placement rate of 110 per 100,000 girls, whereas white girls have a placement rate of 37 per 100,000 girls ( Drinan, 2018 ). Though the proportion of black arrestees for vicious or violent crime exhibit relative stability for more than 20 years, African American represents the largest portion of people apprehended for a violent offense and serves long-term imprisonment in the US. Consequently, the application of mandatory minimum sentencing and three-strike laws promote the imprisonment of African Americans as compared to whites with similar offenses like violent crime and drug offense in the country.
References
Barkow, R. E. (2019). Categorical Mistakes: The Flawed Framework of the Armed Career Criminal Act and Mandatory Minimum Sentencing. Harv. L. Rev. , 133 , 200.
Drinan, C. H. (2018). The war on kids: How American juvenile justice lost its way . Oxford University Press.
Engel, R. S., Worden, R. E., Corsaro, N., McManus, H. D., Reynolds, D., Cochran, H., Isaza, G. T., ... Cherkauskas, J. C. (2019). The power to arrest: Lessons from research . Springer.
Mauer, M. (2018). Long-Term Sentences: Time to Reconsider the Scale of Punishment. UMKC L. Rev. , 87 , 113.
