More Isn't Always Better Part 2

                                  More isn’t Always Better Part Two

       Chapter eight of David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell was different from the chapters. The main idea was too make us see again in another way that more isn’t always better by making going back to what was said in chapter two. There were two main stories. The first was about a young girl named Kimber, she came back from college to visit her family. Kimber was out to lunch with some friends, they were walking back to there car when two men came running up and tried to rob her. She resisted, and the man ended up shooting her. She was rushed to the hospital and died a few hours later. Her father Mike Reynolds swore on that day “I can’t save your life. But I’m going to do everything in my power to try to prevent this from happening to anybody else.” (Gladwell 234)

       This is exactly what Mike Reynolds set out to do. He set up a meeting with people all around the neighborhood to come up with a plan of action. Reynolds and this group of people created something called the Three Strike Law. Anyone in the state of California who was convicted of two serious crimes they would have to serve a double sentence but if the same person committed a crime a any kind a third time they would serve twenty-five years to life. (Gladwell 236). This law was officially signed in 1994 and is still in use today.

     The three-strike law has created more problems then fixed them. You would think that having more criminals in jail would make the crime rates go down, but this just isn’t the case. Studies have shown that the more criminals go to jail the more crime goes up. I know this sounds kind of crazy but think about it for a second. We all know or know of someone who is or has been in jail. What has that experience done to their family? Who has been influenced by what they have done. Following into our parent’s footsteps isn’t something we always want to do but it happens in some way even if we want to or not.

     This story is again an interesting example of more is not always better. In my mind if there is a problem with crime making more laws and rules is a good way to deal with that but then I think about myself. When I was younger I hated when my parents made new rules and it kind of made me want to rebel more. Have you gone to a park and seen the sign with all the rules on it? When I was younger my siblings and I would read those and then try to break as many of them as we could. It is in our human nature to want to rebel and the more rules there are the more we want to break them. We see this in the story of Kimber and Mike Reynolds, we see it every day on the news and in our city’s. Before reading chapter eight I had not made this connection before and it is a very interesting thing to think about.