(to avoid confusion: I'm not the Hadar from the above response)

The three strikes law is pretty horrid in its arbitrary consequences. Firstly, you are right; it does encourage escalated violence. Secondly, it creates life prisoners whose third offense was stealing a pizza from a parking motorcycle (this is someone who is in San Quentin as we speak).

The dangers of a rule like the Three Strikes Law lie in the assumptions that rational-choice analysts of crime make, namely that crime is the product of rational cost and benefit analysis and can be isolated from the social universe that surrounds it. That is, unfortunately, not the case.