Critical and Creative Thinking

Critical and Creative Thinking

Three strikes and you are out. It has been a common baseball term since sometime after the creation of baseball in 1839 ("Baseball Timeline", 2002). The term can also refer to a specific legal situation of a habitual offender. There were approximately twenty-four States as of 1999 with a “Three Strikes Law” ("Three Strikes And You're Out Stop Repeat Offenders", 2016). Does it help the criminal justice system? Does it help the citizens living with the criminals? Does it even matter?

Here is the scenario:

You are walking to your car in the back corner of an isolated parking lot. A man suddenly appears and approaches you. He has one hand in his coat pocket, and you suspect he may be armed. Is it better for you if this event happens in a state with a Three Strikes law, which mandates harsh sentences for a person who commits a violent felony and who already has two previous felony convictions, or in a State without such a law (University of Phoenix, 2014)?

At that moment in the given scenario, it does not matter to me. If the person was trying to assault me or rob me, then I would defend myself and worry about the law and potential punishments later. The scenario does not play out to its end, so it is hard to know how to properly respond to the situation. Is the person going to come up ask you for spare change? Is he going to pull out his hand holding a copy of his current independently recorded music cd? The intent of the person has not been made clear. I have been in a similar situation where it turned out the person was selling coupon books for his child’s school fundraiser. I have bought homemade tamales in a Walmart parking lot from a parolee with multiple gang tattoos, which I immediately recognized from my training and experience as a police officer. Some of the tattoos indicated prison time and work done for the gang. Normally this is not something I would do, but I still believe people can change. There was something about that parolee that made me believe he wanted to change. He was doing something small to make money during the Christmas season, but it was what he could do without resulting to criminal behavior.

It is hard for me to imagine myself in this situation as a victim. I keep my head on a swivel and stay prepared for situations like this. I am a “sheepdog” as described by Colonel Dave Grossman’s book On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace. Grossman talks about the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs of this world. Your everyday regular person falls into the “sheep” category. Grossman wrote, “They [sheep] are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident.” The bad guys of this world fall into the “wolf” into the category. The wolves hunt and kill the sheep. The “sheepdogs” are those men