By Alabama Public Radio
Montgomery, AL – The state's habitual offender law is being scrutinized as one of the reasons why Alabama's prison system is habitually overcrowded. Nearly one third of the inmates serving time in Alabama's prisons were sentenced under that law. Sentencing experts say Alabama's is one of the harshest laws in the nation. Repeat offender laws are commonly referred to as "three strikes and you're out." Alabama's repeat offender law differs from others across the nation in that it does not figure in the length of time between convictions or the severity of prior offenses. The Alabama Sentencing Commission's preliminary 2006 report states more than half of the nearly 86-hundred habitual offenders were given tougher sentences after convictions for property or drug crimes. But in most cases the law does not give any weight to the prior offense, no matter what it was.