A California man accused of killing his wife’s 6-week-old Chihuahua could get life in prison under the state’s three-strikes law. He allegedly threw the dog against a wall.
He was also predictably charged with one misdemeanor count of battery on a spouse. The InsideBayArea.com story reports he has a criminal history more than 30-years long.
I happen to agree with these three-strikes laws. We’ve got to start putting violent offenders and others who are threat to innocent people away for long, long prison sentences.
It certainly makes sense to lock up violent repeat offenders, but “three-strikes” laws aren’t the right way to do it. They’re an overly simple-minded solution to the problem that, in the case of California’s law for example, fails to distinguish between serious violent repeat offenders and someone who committed some relatively minor drug offenses in his youth then commits some other minor crime.
So why not lock up even non-violent repeat offenders for life? After all, it’s not like they have to commit crimes. True enough, but our resources aren’t limitless, and funds diverted to locking people up aren’t available for hiring more police officers to deter crime in the first place.
The U.S. already has the largest prison population on Earth — bigger even than China, which has a far larger population — so it’s not as if we aren’t putting enough people in to prison. And despite that, we have one of the highest violent crime rates in the developed world. We’re clearly doing something wrong.
But this guy? Yes, lock him up for a long, long time.