Strikes: Violent story idea

As some of you may know, California has a “2 strikes to life” law. In practice, this law incarcerates you for life on your second possession conviction. The law was theoretically supposed to wait until a third conviction, but the prison business is booming and needs a steady supply of inmates. In practice, the second arrest will be for two felonies. No violent crime is required: drug use, peeping toms, shoplifting, and others have all been used.

So a rational human, once convicted of one felony, would do anything to avoid a second one. We would like to think this avoidance would take the form of scrupulously honest activity, but it could also take the form of extreme violence to silence witnesses. Hence the storyline.

One plausible outcome is a far more violent gang. If a felon were arrested, gang member would immediately target the arresting officer, witnesses, etc., to prevent conviction. After all, the conviction is a death sentence and a convict on bail would probably try for this. It could extend further, to random acts of crime in the neighborhoods of high conviction judges. Once convicted felons would find themselves forcibly recruited.

No need to think too deep, as this would be one of those “just enough storyline to justify cathartic violence” novels. Pick either side as the protagonist and kill the otherside in droves.