The presumption is that prosecutors ask for a life sentence only if a third-strike crime is violent or serious.
Foreign-currency reserves have been shrinking; inflation is running at 12%, tourism has slumped by a third; strikes, crime and uncertainty reduced foreign investment last year to less than a twentieth of what it was in 2007.
Anti-World Cup protests in 12 cities have marked the worst day in another awful week for Brazil as the government struggles with strikes, crime and public unease less than a month before the tournament kicks off.
Strikes, crime, and increasingly violent demonstrations have been ongoing in nearly all of the 12 host cities throughout Brazil as it gears up to host the international tournament this month.
In 2004, reformers put an initiative on the ballot, Proposition 66, that would have reduced the number of people going to prison for life by removing nonviolent property and drug offenses from the list of three-strikes crimes.
Edgar was presumably able to draw on his experience of agitprop theatre of the 1960s and 70s, when companies such as Portable theatre would create and tour plays about contemporary issues (strikes, crimes, scandals).
In 2013, the most recent state records show, there were more than 14,000 inmates in prison for nonviolent second-strike crimes.
Among other things, the proposed law would cut sentences for some federal three-strikes crimes from life to 25 years, which is a great idea and would at least begin to claw back draconian punishments for nonviolent drug offenses.
If you've ever gone on YouTube to watch clips of old matches it's striking how often you're left with the awkward, indignant feeling you might get were you to revisit a 1970s TV show about a grief stricken, crime-solving lardarse who kung-fu chopped his way to justice.
