Anyway, I'm still unsure how I entered this territory, but I guess it was the unfolding of a solution for crime that just developed as I wrote Chapter 1 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.
Let me come straight to this simple solution to crime: Three Strikes and You're Dead (TSAYD)! To repeat, THREE STRIKES AND YOU'RE DEAD. Let me remind you (as underscored in both SIMPLE SOLUTION books) that simple solutions are rarely simple.
First conviction: Someone commits a crime. Do everything possible to reform the misguided individual. One remediative option is restorative justice, promoting repair, reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships. The process attempts to build partnerships, seeking balanced approaches for victim, wrongdoer and community. There will be a lot of counseling and, as necessary and possible, some restitution.
New Zealand legislated in 1989 restorative justice for juvenile crime. Then, there were 64 violations per 1,000 in the population. Today, this figure has dropped to 16.
The concept is hardly new, as the Pentateuch, the so-called books of Moses, advocated compensation for property crimes, as did the Code of Hammurabi (1700 BC). The Code of Ur-Nammu (2000 BC) required amends for violence.
Spend the bigger bucks on shoring up the early life (as underscored in Part 1), but be generous, too, on reclaiming this individual after a tolerable first offense. The primary objective will be to prevent those potential second and third crimes. Half of all inmates are back in jail only two years later. A simple way to reduce this rate is to strike fear into the offender so that he abandons all thought of committing another crime. Thus, the penalty for entering stage two should be terrible, if not horrendous.
Crime #2 is committed and the defendant is judged guilty. Standard prison? Nope. Save your tax monies to build better school systems. Find some hellacious environment where the prisoner will need to support himself, and where the cost to society will be minimal. A mild form -- I was thinking more in terms of dungeons or caves -- of this concept is represented by Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa Arizona County:
1. jail meals, such as a bologna sandwich, costs 40 cents/serving, and he charges inmates for them;
2. no smoking, no coffee and no porno magazines;
3. chain gangs to do free work on county projects; and
4. took away cable TV, but was forced to put them back because a federal court required that for jails, so he played only the Disney and weather channels, and added Newt Gingrich lectures.
When inmates complained, he told them don't come back. Two thousand prisoners in tents with no air conditioning, even when the temperature is more than 116 degrees F. Sheriff Joe says that our soldiers in Iraq are in tents where the temperature exceeds 120, in full battle gear.
The question is, will those who survive be more apt not to return? The answer is, heck, yes, but mostly because of the consequences of a third conviction! Anyway, why waste good money on the hopeless, which is defined as anyone who is stupid enough to commit a second crime knowing that the punishment will be hell. The prison of Sheriff Joe is a reasonable simple solution for strike two. There are harsher, and probably more effective (but illegal and immoral) options, but for now, let us leave them for future consideration.
Third conviction: termination! Yes, death. The U.S. has now had more than 1,000 executions since the Supreme Court ended a moratorium three decades ago. The transition will be messy, but under the TSAYD formula, this number could seriously increase in the first few years, but should decline with time. The odds are astronomically high that crime rates will significantly drop within the decade. Where are the supporting statistics? Probably none exists. I just feel this way.
Oh yes, there are millions of questions and issues. What about a white collar criminal or traffic violator? Can you execute someone for stealing a chocolate chip cookie or a magazine? You've no doubt read of a car thief, who is convicted, convicted mind you, dozens of times (well, I'm not sure what the record is, and I can't imagine our court system being so efficient as to actually convict the same person so many times), and still somehow runs loose and is arrested for stealing yet another car. Maybe enough should be three convictions for anything. Under the TSAYD system, the odds are high that this will all stop after the first arrest.
But what about those dependent on drugs who cannot control themselves or the few so idiotic as to commit that third crime? Answering this question will only irritate churches, social workers, the American Civil Liberties Union and mothers.
Then, there is that matter of mental illness. A Bureau of Justice Statistics study reported in 2006 that half of those in jail suffered from mental health problems, especially those convicted three or more times. Sounds menacingly Hitleresque, but perhaps an argument can be made that the elimination of this drag on society would only improve the quality of life for the productive and innocent. Former Education Secretary William Bennett, on his radio show, is quoted to have said:
To reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down...That would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.
He said his statement was taken out of context, and TSAYD definitely falls in this category.
Could a "Three Strikes and You're Dead" law ever be enacted anywhere in the world today? I hope not. But let me suggest that the concept be debated and considered, for, perhaps, a compromising intermediary first step might well be a more universal application of the Sheriff Joe penal system. However, after considerable public anguish, I would not be surprised if something a lot more draconian, but justified, actually is attempted. What somewhat worries me (because I am compassionate, honestly), though, is that many of my friends in casual conversation, with few exceptions, actually like the notion of TSAYD.
Thus, the nature of our present culture, could well be the primary impediment to ending crime forever. This could well be the legacy of our imperfect, but reasonably mature, society.
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