Baumes Laws

Baumes Laws, several statutes of the criminal code of New York state, U.S., enacted on July 1, 1926—most notably, one requiring mandatory life imprisonment for persons convicted of a fourth felony. A “three-time loser” was thus one who had thrice been convicted of a felony and faced life imprisonment if convicted again.

In 1926 the New York State Crime Commission, chaired by Caleb H. Baumes, proposed a number of reforms and revisions of the criminal code to the state legislature. The most forceful recommendation was the Habitual Criminal Act. It provided for increasingly heavy sentences to repetitive felons. Although the clause providing for mandatory life imprisonment for a fourth felony had been a state statute since 1907, the Baumes Laws closed loopholes that had rendered the previous law ineffective. Baumes Laws, based on the principle that repression is the best method of eliminating crime, became a model for criminal-code reform in other states.