Three Strikes

Somebody's followed my comment at Free Market Fairy Tales over to my humble blog, presumably looking for more info on the 3-strikes rule.

Roughly, the '3-strikes and you're out' means tacking on extra time and punishment to criminal receiving their third conviction. The details vary by state, and some states don't have such a rule at all. Say a charge normally gets a 5 year sentence - if this is the third time you've been convicted, you might get something like 15 or 20 years instead.

The good side is that it keeps the genuine, no-doubt-about-it bad guys out of society's hair for longer periods of time. The downside is that a criminal who already has two convictions may freak (become more violent) when he's about to be busted for the third time. Overall, I believe the benefits outweigh the downside.