Blog Post #9

            California has recently passed a law to soften their three-strikes law. The three-strikes law was originally passed in the 1990’s after two young white women were murdered by men with violent criminal histories. America voted in a fit of anger to pass the three-strikes law.  Essentially a third offense after two violent felony crimes could land someone in prison with a 25 year-life sentence. “Under the statute the third offense that could result in a life sentence could be any number of low-level felony convictions, like stealing a jack from the back of a tow truck, shoplifting a pair of work gloves from a department store, pilfering small change from a parked car or passing a bad check” (Staple, 2012). The law spread to 24 other states by 1996 and resulted in grossly overpopulated prisons. “As it turned out, three strikes created a cruel, Kafkaesque criminal justice system that lost all sense of proportion, doling out life sentences disproportionately to black defendants” (Staple, 2012). At the time that the three-strikes law was put on the ballot “a few noted criminologists predicted that “three strikes” laws, which would sweep the nation, were unlikely to have much effect on crime, would fill the nation’s prisons to bursting and would satisfy frustrating voters at the expense of bad public policy. They were largely ignored” (Gross, 2013). Personally, I can’t understand how it’s taken this long for California to revise this law. While I am sympathetic with both of the victim’s families, their fathers should not have been the ones writing legislation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/booming/born-of-grief-three-strikes-laws-are-being-rethought.html?ref=us&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/california-horror-stories-and-the-3-strikes-law.html?_r=0

Observation: 10 years after the law was passed nearly half of the three-strikes offenders were serving 25 yr-life sentences for petty crimes.