The author’s key question in “Implementation methods used to carry out the Three Strikes Law in California” is whether the Three Strikes Law should be changed or repealed in favor of a different punishment structure. Gasca (2018) presents the top-down and the bottom-up approaches to the implementation of laws and policies as the main theoretical points of view. The key concepts used and described in the article are the Three Strikes Legislation and the law implementation process. Three strikes legislation is the sentencing law used for deterrence and prevention of crime by subjecting repeated offenders to severe sanctions. The implementation process is how the law is carried out and the alterations it has undergone throughout time.
The main assumption underlying the article is that the regulatory law’s content is determined by its use for the voters and prosecutors simultaneously. Hence, the author believes that consideration of the multiple perspectives provides a better ground for the implementation of the law. The method that Gasca (2018) employs to make conclusions is the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data about the viewpoints of the law’s voters and prosecutors. The researcher interviewed 2% of the overall population of prosecutors, which equals 20 interviews. Moreover, the research surveys the opinions of CSUN’s students as voters, with a sample size of at least 381 respondents, which is 10% of the population.
The author concludes that the Three Strikes Law should be changed since it is currently applied to non-violent crimes as often as for violent crimes, which it was meant to prevent, negatively affecting the prisoners’ number. If this argument is taken seriously and implemented, there would be more research and voting for the shift of the law, as the author suggests, which would decrease the level of non-violent criminals being sentenced harder. If these conclusions are not implemented, people who have not committed violent crimes would be charged strictly and face the psychological consequences of being imprisoned. However, the limitations of the article lie in its design: the population that represents voters belongs to one social group (students). The article’s findings can be applied to the Florida Supreme Court to assess its Three Strikes Law similarly.
Reference
Gasca, M. (2018). Implementation methods used to carry out the Three Strikes Law in California. California State University.