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There is a good possibility voters in California will get a chance to reform their 1994 “three strikes” law this November. Supporters of the ballot initiative to reform the law claim they turned in signatures well in excess of the 500,000 required by state law to qualify for the ballot. From Mercury News:
An initiative written by Stanford University professors to scale back California’s tough Three Strikes Law has garnered more than 830,000 signatures of support, virtually ensuring the measure will make the November ballot and triggering the state’s latest struggle over how harshly criminals should be treated.
California is the only one of the 26 states with three strikes laws to allow prosecutors to charge any felony as a third strike — and then to lock up the offenders for 25 years to life. The proposed initiative would reserve that penalty for the baddest of the bad, including murderers, rapists and child molesters.
The initiative is meant to be a small step towards dealing with prison overcrowding and the huge burden the prison population places on the state’s budget.
The war on drugs and the three strikes law have resulted in the prison population and costs skyrocketing in the state over the past several decades. According to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office it cost on average $47,000 a year to incarcerate one prisoner. With roughly 141,000 people in state prison as of February, this represents a huge expense for the state. Also, the prison population well exceeds the capacity of the state’s facilities which is why the Supreme Court ordered the state do reduce prison overcrowding in 2011.
Early polling indicates that if the initiative qualifies, it stands a decent chance of being approved by the voters. A Field poll taken last year directly after the Supreme Court ordered California to reduce its prison overcrowding found that 74% supported changing the three strikes law to give judges and juries more discretion in sentencing. Of course, opinions can change once campaigns start talking more about the specific details.
This would be the second ballot initiative related to prison expense and sentencing on the ballot in California this year. Earlier this week an initiative that would end the death penalty was certified to appear before the voters.
15 Comments
wasnt the point of all of this proto-ALEC laws passed in the early 90′s to create more “prisoners” so states would have to build more prisons …well pay private right wing contractors to.
This is a double-edged sword. One real concern is that we shouldn’t be incarcerating so many people for drug offenses. That alone would be smarter and reduce prison populations. However…there has been a significant decline in crime over the past two decades and some of that is attributable to the fact that three-strikes has done a lot to shut down the revolving door. It has put a lot of career criminals in jail where they don’t have the opportunity to come back and prey on the public.
Three strikes should be debated and decided on the basis of whether or not it decreases crime, and not on whether or not it will reduce budget costs. It doesn’t do any good to reduce prison costs if all that results in is more costs to investigate, prosecute, and prevent current crime. Moreover, the public will bear these other costs in various ways, from personal loss and injury to greater financial demands on local law enforcement.
You’re smooth, Mr. Populist. I’ll say that for you.
But, the real Tell is how it seems you always know what needs to be done.
I signed that initiative. Do you live in California, or are you speaking in the general?
Violent criminals should go to jail. However, let’s say someone is convicted of stealing a bike, then steals a car, and then another car. I don’t approve of stealing a car or anything else but the punishment should not be 25 years in prison which I have to pay for. In Ca it costs between 25 and 30 thousand a year per prisoner. Stealing is very different from rape, assault or murder.
Huzzah or amen, or whateverhighfive, on that, Twain.
Hi.
Hi, Demi. Is it hot down there?
Well, it is, in fact, Mild. Currently 80 on the front porch.
Bizarro weather. In the past few weeks, I’ve had it really warm, up to 100, thundershower with Hail, and some grey days with drizzle.
How’s the North?
Really great to see you, btw.
We have strange weather, too. Getting rain when it’s late for us although today is sunny and beautiful. It’s sneezy out for those of us blessed with allergies.
Oh, yeah, on that. My whole yard is in crazy bloom.
I’m currently taking a generic brand of an all day allergy medicine. Tiny pill in the morning that really helps.
Life’s all about a choice. I can enjoy the view of the flowers, but I have to deal with the pollen. I can try to pay attention to what’s going on out in the world that is having a huge affect on me and my family and my goose eggs, or I can stick my head in the sand.
Oh, the choices I have. :)
Now if we could get rid of Proposition 13 in CA our schools could go back to being among the best in the nation instead of at the bottom. Further,we could reduce those regressive hidden taxes that are imposed as fees, and go back to a UC system that was once affordable to the financially modest classes.
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*Before Prop 13 commercial real estate paid 75% of the property tax. After Prop 13 they pay 25%. Before Prop 13 those who wanted to raise revenue and those that did not had an equal vote. After Prop 13 the vote by those who don’t want to raise revenue counts twice as much as the vote by those who do.
It will depend on how voters end up seeing the issue. It could go either way.
Cost and overcrowded prisons would relate to excessive, gratuitous oversentencing simply as a punishment.
OTH the issue of deteriorating public safety, by releasing convicts too soon, is entirely separate and it might override cost concerns incurred by longer incarceration.
Neither case considers reforming a convict and returning a productive person to society. Maybe nowadays that’s too much to hope for.
I don’ think the PTB saw Prop 13 coming or took the prospect seriously all those years ago. They were asleep.
So for good or ill it happened for a reason, and it was not simply a perverse accident. Now, at this late date, it would be interesting to see if they could revisit Prop 13 with a replacement which would roll in some progressive income factors. But I’m not holding my breath. That would be like selling salt free potato chips.
Huh? Three strikes was a knee jerk reaction to violent felons having a revolving door, primarily due to sub-par judges and juries of PC idiots. Ask some cops: it turned 2 strike violent felons into shoot-first psycho-killers across the land, making each of us less safe, period. Spooky, specious government, removing the point of our legal system with an add-on mandate.. hummm,3 strikes? Absurd, really Orwellian…but proof a fish stinks from the head first, proof our ‘elected’ monkeys haven’t a clue as to the ramifications of ‘laws’ they read and approved… ad naseum, apparently.
As for reducing crime.. says who? BS… crime has declined in direct proportion to the rise in cell phone use, since everyone has record, store, post-to-you-tube instant offender alert features in their ‘phone’… this exponential rise in surveillance… less crime… give the judges their balls back…
Demi –
Sorry to be so late in replying but I didn’t log back on until just now. To answer your question:
Yes, I live in CA, and have for 59 years.
No, I didn’t sign that initiative, and I don’t recall being approached to do so. However, I have been active in circulating local initiative petitions and referendum petitions to stop uncontrolled growth/real estate development greed in my community. Batting average is pretty good. We qualified every attempt except one, and that one we fixed by doing a follow up petition campaign. We also won all but one of the ensuing ballot measure election campaigns.
Interesting perspective. Your take is that a career criminal should be free to keep on committing crimes as long as they’re not violent. Hmmm.
Ever had your car stolen? Your house broken into with your valuables (and sentimental family heirlooms stolen)? I can say “yes” to both.
When your car was stolen, did you get it back? If not, how much of a settlement did you get on your insurance. Were you able to replace that car with an identical one without adding cash-out-of-pocket to pay the cost?
If you got your car back, what kind of shape was it in? Pristine, just you left it? Or trashed, missing the radio, airbags, seats, rims & tires, etc? No body damage, or crashed?
Ever wonder why cars are stolen? Sure, sometimes it’s for youthful joyriding. But other times? Well, lemme see:
How about for drug deals and drive-by shootings? Yep.
How about to be chopped up and the parts sold off? Absolutely. A thriving organized crime endeavor.
How about to be driven across the border into Mexico or shipped to a foreign country (again, by organized crime syndicates)? Once again, yes, absolutely.
And are stolen cars ever traded for drugs with Mexican drug cartels? My guess is, yes. Ever traded to corrupt Mexican law enforcement officials? I know the answer to this one for sure, because when the archbishop was assassinated in Mexico a few years back, several victims of car theft watching the TV coverage spotted Mexican cops and officials driving their cars. In one case, it still had the CA license plate on it. In another, it still had the parking permit decal in the back windown for the school that the owner’s kid attends.
But it’s only car theft, right? Car thieves never graduate to other crimes, right?
Much as I detest Rudi Guilani, he did get one thing right when he became mayor of NYC: had had the cops crack down on minor crimes, like turnstile jumping and drinking in public. Guess what? A lot of the people they stopped for these crimes had drugs, weapons, and/or warrants for other crimes. A car thief, esp. a habitual offender, is more often than not also guilty of a vast number of other crimes for which they weren’t caught. In fact, there are instances where criminals in prison for robbery or car theft or drug dealing have subsequently been identified as the perps in outstanding murder and rape cases.