In my estimation, our “3 strikes law” is a sad indictment of a system that is too lazy to deal with the issues that cause crime. Throwing people in prison and tossing away the key may solve problems temporarily.

But, hey, people have to eat, people have to sleep, people have many necessities. It costs about $32,000 to incarcerate a person for a year, then they reach their 55 years of age and it gets trickier yet. They start showing signs of the maladies associated with age and whoa, their cost of incarceration triples that of younger folks.

Gun lobby money, scare tactics and a promise of ridding us of the worst criminals brought “3 strikes” into being. A tremendous burden borne by the taxpayer, it is not cost effective.

Some 72 percent of those incarcerated under this law and serving life sentences are there due to convictions of lower-level offenses.

– Alex Chalimbekov