California originated the three-strikes law in March of 1994 and in theory it was an excellent way of deterring offenders from becoming repeat offenders. This created the likelihood that the offender could be put away for life depending upon conviction of a third felony. The three-strikes law bases itself around a minimum sentence of twenty-five years to life in state or federal prison, regardless of what the offense is. However, this created a larger problem and quadrupled the prisons populations. What voters thought to be an excellent solution to repeat offenders created more negatives, rather than positives within the criminal justice system.
The “three-strikes and your out” law was in essence a solution to a severe problem of high recidivism rates in California. It was originated to either deter or keep repeat offenders in jail, however with California having a roughly 70% recidivism rate, this ultimately led to the problem we see now, which is overcrowding in the state prisons. The California state prison system is meant to hold roughly 80,000 inmates, statewide. The current population of the state prison system is somewhere near 175,000 inmates (The Economist), easily doubling the systems maximum occupancy. How did this happen? It’s easy to explain because there are not many prevention programs, and the ones that are in place today, are nearly impossible for inmates enroll into, further adding to the recidivism rate. After two felony “strikes,” regardless of the second sentence term, the third felony is an automatic minimum of twenty-five years to life in prison. The third felony strike can range in severity, from minimal offenses to obvious severe criminal offenses. Now, I am not in favor of criminals not being punished for their offenses; however the overcrowding we see today is a result of some third felony convictions being unjust in certain cases.
The California criminal justice system is locking up more people under the three-strikes law for petty theft (petty theft in California qualifies as under $400 face value), minor drug possession and various minor parole violations than we are for serious offenses such as murder, assault and rape. We’ve seen these unjust convictions time and time again in the last sixteen years of this law being in effect. In 1998, we see an unjust conviction in the case of Larry South (http://www.economist.com/node/16693779). South, having previous violations, including two felony accounts, which should not have been felonies in the first place based on the circumstances, was caught stealing $29 worth of plumbing supplies from a local Home Depot. The prosecuting attorney, based solely on the fact that there were two previous felonies, sought and demanded life in prison over $30 worth of plumbing supplies. Life in prison for stealing plumbing supplies, strikes me as a violation of the 8th amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Life in prison for a minor theft is flat out inhumane.
Each prisoner costs California taxpayers roughly $50,000 a year for medical, food and other care. Some can argue that prisoners have better care and health coverage than most law-abiding citizens, however I will save this for another post. My point is, these minor felony offenses can and should be served in other ways such as community service, work projects and other society improving ‘punishments,’ to better improve their contribution to society. We should only be locking up serious criminal offenders; murders, rapists, human traffickers, and other larger scale thieves. The previously mentioned alternative course of actions would cost taxpayers less, allowing for more funding to be put towards the educational system, while also improving offender’s behaviors by not placing them in prison where they learn more techniques to successfully offend from other acquaintances and overall, lower our severe overcrowded prison population.
References
Cooley's Law: Mandatory Sentencing in California.
California Three Strikes Defense Lawyers
Three Strikes and You're In
