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Sunday, June 26, 2011

Three Strikes

As I am sure many of you are aware, one-half of the states in this nation have enacted Three Strikes laws that require mandatory sentences for so-called habitual criminals. In some of these states, three appropriate convictions can mean the defendant is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole!

While these laws generally have been promoted by conservatives, a lot of people from all sides of the political aisle approve of the Three Strikes strategy. It is a way, they believe, of keeping our communities safe from dangerous criminals.

Whether or not you favor these types of laws -- I certainly do not -- there can be no question that they are not applied uniformly. Minorities are subject to them more than whites and average folks -- regardless of color -- are subjected to them far more than wealthy individuals or corporations.

In fact, corporations -- legal persons in the eyes of the law -- are almost never threatened with 3 strikes and you're out! A corporation can defraud, injure, sicken or kill citizens in community after community and yet the Three Strikes doctrine somehow doesn't apply to them.

Think about the various mining, agribusiness, or chemical corporations that are cited time and time again for a wide variety of health and safety violations. In many such cases, workers and/or citizens have died or been severely injured. Streams and waterways have been polluted. Pollutants have leached into the ground or have been let loose in the air.

State and federal regulators tell us that they will come down hard on the offenders. Huge headlines fill our local newspapers providing a laundry list of offenses stretching back years or decades. Big fines are trumpeted, head honchos are dragged into regulatory hearings or court, and we hear of the possibility that the business's license will be revoked or the enterprise will be forced out of business.

After all the hub-bub dies down, a few weeks or months later, we read on page 12 of the local paper that the government and offending corporation have reached a "settlement." Whatever fine or jail time was announced earlier has been pared back significantly -- sometimes almost to non-existent levels. Even more galling, the "settlement" allows the offending corporation to walk away WITHOUT admitting any guilt!

While an average Joe can be sent to prison for life for possessing a minuscule amount of marijuana or a home invasion in which little is taken and no one is hurt (a 3rd strike crime), major corporations can steal from hundreds of thousands of citizens or commit acts that result in death and injury and yet they don't even have to admit they did anything wrong! And they can engage in such criminal behavior repeatedly, but never face these kinds of mandatory sentences.

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