Criminals Would Hail Three-Strikes Revision

Re “Voters Favor Scaling Back 3-Strikes Law,” Oct. 20: The bleeding hearts are at it again. It appears that Proposition 66 will pass. I have been told that the people do not want to apply the three-strike rule to offenders convicted of a lesser crime. These criminals, with two prior serious felony convictions and a host of other criminal offenses, would be let out on the street until they commit armed robbery, rape or murder. Why in the name of common sense do we want to give them this opportunity?

The cost of $30,000-plus a year to keep them off the streets is a small price as compared with the cost of a serious offense that finally puts them were they belong. I for one feel no remorse over putting career criminals in the place they deserve.

Walter J. Scheiderich Jr.

Simi Valley

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If the polls are correct and California voters now wish to rescind the three-strikes law, it’s wonderful news. For career criminals and their cohorts, defense lawyers. Everybody knows that most crooks don’t get arrested and convicted for every felony they commit, so let us not pretend that a lot of good guys are getting locked up for 25 years to life for merely kiting checks and stealing pizzas. That’s a load of hooey propagated by the lawyers’ lobby.

This is a sad day for California, but a happy one for the California Bar Assn., for which the three-strikes law has meant a loss of steady business from the recidivists who prey upon the rest of us.

Burt Prelutsky

North Hills