Criticism In California Beware Connecticut.

Some critics have argued that three-strikes laws violate the double jeopardy clause of the U.S. Constitution, although the Supreme Court of the United States has already upheld the constitutionality, in general, of using the fact of prior convictions as an aggravating factor in determining the severity of a sentence. Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U.S. 224 (1998).
Another criticism is that many felonies involve only a minimal threat to society. In some states, possession of a small amount of crack cocaine or even marijuana may be treated as a felony, so three such convictions would carry permanent imprisonment. There are many other felonies which call into question the advisability of strict three-strikes laws, such as some minor white-collar crimes which only marginally qualify as felonies.
A burglary, a crime which could result in the theft of something having little or no value, is perceived as being unjustly included as one of the three "strikes." However, burglary often involves breaking into others' houses, and burglars often resort to violence when they encounter the family members unexpectedly. For instance, on July 22, 2007, two convicted burglars out on parole (Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes) were accused of killing three family members during a home invasion, sexual assault, and arson in Cheshire, Connecticut. As a result of the massacre of the Petit family, Governor M. Jodi Rell has asked the Connecticut legislature to redefine burglary as a violent crime.
Some have also argued that these laws can provide criminals with a perverse incentive to commit murder. This is based on the added penalties that arise under these laws, penalties that equal or exceed common sentences for many homicides, and which would presumably render moot the legal disincentive from committing a homicide if facing those penalties. If a person already has two felony convictions, then a conviction for any third felony (such as grand theft) may carry a penalty comparable to or greater than that for a murder conviction. Thus these laws could encourage homicides committed either incident or related to the commission of a third-strike felony or committed in an effort to avoid apprehension and prosecution, such as killing a witness to a crime or killing police officers while attempting to escape, potentially lessening the risk of being apprehended and sentenced under these laws (though the death penalty might apply to such cases as an added disincentive). The refutation to this claim is that most brutal crimes are committed in impulse (when the emotion overpowers the rationality), and very few criminals have the chance to think through all the consequences when they commit crimes. Therefore the so called “perverse incentive” has never been proved to exist. It could very well be the product of pure imaginations.
Less dramatic, though by no means insignificant perverse incentives may arise from these laws. As guilty pleas may and have resulted in multiple strikes being added, these laws may decrease the incentive to plea bargain, increasing the cost and time spent by courts. Defendants facing third strikes lose incentives to plead to lesser offenses that may result in strike, and also lose incentives to cooperate with investigations, forcing prosecutors to take to court potentially weak cases. Life sentences rule out the possibility of rehabilitation, and likewise often remove incentives on prisoners to participate meaningfully in prison programs or to control their behavior, producing a larger population of violent and disruptive prisoners. The refutation to this claim is that the victims' lives are too precious to be compared to the cost and time spent by courts.
Holding many more inmates for longer sentences increases the overall strain on prison systems, many of which (particularly in California) are already perilously overcrowded. Three-strikes laws place a particular strain on high- and maximum-security facilities. Prisoners serving long sentences are commonly held in maximum-security, regardless of the nature of their specific offenses or other factors affecting their profile as inmates, on the principle that inmates with longer sentences have more reason to escape or become disruptive than inmates with shorter sentences. Thus, third-strike life prisoners held on non-violent offenses occupy space that might otherwise be used to confine more dangerous and violent inmates, and they are also exposed to those inmates in maximum-security, placing them at higher risk of assault, rape, murder and prison gang activity.
The refutation to some of the criticisms of three-strikes laws is that some of the critics may have committed the perfect solution fallacy, and that the critics themselves have not presented a perfect solution. It is possible that with the improvements on its questionable parts, three-strikes laws as a whole may be able to serve as an acceptable solution to the violent crimes of our society.