Liberals like to discuss the unfairness of California’s so-called “three strikes” criminal law. Under “three strikes,” a third criminal conviction results in substantial added incarceration of a convicted offender. Liberals think that is unfair to the civil rights of the criminal.
Conservatives say the civil rights of the victims need more consideration in law, and reason that putting repeat offenders away for longer periods reduces crime.
The relatively new book by a couple of basically liberal economists, “Superfreakeconomics,” the sequel to their earlier “Freakeconomics,” gives factual support to conservatives’ view that keeping repeaters in jail is best for society. According to their research, whenever the American Civil Liberties Union wins a criminal case that gets a violent felon out of prison, crime goes up in that area by 10% in three years. The authors have tested this and it is not just a theory, it is a fact. Anybody who doubts that the three strikes law is a good thing, needs to read “Superfreakeconomics.”