Curbing career criminals
| One of the few things we know about crime is that past predation is a reasonably reliable earmark of prospective criminality; and, that while career criminals are incarcerated countless gruesome crimes are prevented. From this wisdom was born three-strikes laws that punish incorrigible felons with life imprisonment. Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Ewing vs. California (March 5, 2003) that the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments is undisturbed by terms of imprisonment that put an end to careers in criminality. What astonishes is not the majority decision, but that four justices dissented and that the case sparked controversy. |
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