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The Effects of the Three Strikes Law on California’s Court and Prison Systems, Capstone Project Example

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Capstone Project

Abstract

California’s three strikes law has created problems for the state court and prison systems which need to be addressed. Chief among these issues is the sheer economic cost of implementing the three strikes laws. The costs for pre-conviction jail time, case processing, and trials have substantially increased. Prison building costs will necessarily rise as well, as will the long-term expenses associated ensuing from lengthier sentences and the subsequent need for care for geriatric prisoners. Implementation of the three strikes laws is pushing costs for the court and prison systems well beyond a manageable level for the state, and the intrinsic value of the law must then be determined. Society insists upon justice, but the fact remains that the state of California cannot maintain the cost of the three strikes law as it exists in its present form, and only a severe modification of it can warrant its presence.

Problem

The historic passing of California’s Three Strikes Law in 1994, which set a precedent in the manner in which repeat offenders would be dealt with by the criminal justice system, was very much prompted by a single crime. The brutal murder of twelve year-old Polly Klaas by a recently paroled and violent offender generated public outrage demanding a legislative response from the state government, and the measure was passed by a substantial margin of the vote. While the content of the bill dictated that the law would apply to offenders with histories of serious crime and eliminate possibilities for parole upon a third offense, the tide of public feeling, reflected by the lawmakers, served to create a broader platform. In California, while murder, rape, and arson most certainly fall under the heading of “serious” crime, the label may be legally attached to non-violent, and even non-felony, offenses (Bazelon, 2010).

This has created a scenario in which virtually any combination of convicted crimes, provided that they reach three in number, may lead to a life sentence in California. As will be discussed, there are inherent issues in ethics and the proper administration of criminal justice within the law, its aftermath, and its applications. In terms of the simple reality of the court and prison systems of California, however, something more pressing and immediate is creating a crisis, for the state’s criminal justice system is hopelessly overburdened. What has occurred, in fact, is that the system has been literally overturned; what was designed to expedite incarceration and integrate offenders back into society as early as was safely possible is now expected to accommodate, and frequently for life, vastly increased numbers of them. Essentially, the enormous price tag of three strikes calls for an evaluation of its real merit. In order to preserve a rational, working criminal justice system, the state of California must acknowledge that only in a radically simplified form may three strikes both accomplish its goals and be affordable.

Factors Bearing on the Problem

Pre-Conviction Jail Time

An immense component within the financial burdens placed on California by the three strikes law is the complex one of pretrial, or pre-conviction, costs. In the year following the implementation of the three strikes law, the percentage of pretrial inmates in the jails increased by over ten percent (CDCR, 1999).

Case Processing and Trial Time

The three strikes law has produced a specific alteration within the trial process, in California; the severity of it has changed suspect response, and more suspects seek trials rather than pleading guilty. This inevitably leads to increased time spent on case processing, the continued detention of the offender, trial time, and various other associated costs (Executive Summary, 2007).

Prison Overcrowding

One of the most evident and inescapable consequences of three strikes to the criminal justice system in California is the greatly increased need for more prison facilities. Already, the state of California has spent approximately $7.4 billion on new prison construction to accommodate an additional 40,000 to 50,000 prisoners, in order to ease existing overcrowding. The sum is substantially higher than that which the state spends on its public universities (New Haven Register Editor, 2007).

Long-Term Sentencing and Geriatric Inmates

An inevitable result of three strikes law is greatly extended prison time for inmates, which translates to both the expenses of incarcerating younger offenders for longer periods and the higher costs of addressing age issues. Based upon national averages, it costs twice as much to detain a geriatric inmate as it does to incarcerate a younger offender (Greifinger, 2007, p. 58).

Parole Supervision

The demands on the parole branch of the system are, and will be more so, burdened by the need to closely monitor paroled three strikes offenders. The cost of parole supervision for California inmates is already currently estimated at about $20 million per year (Dichiara, 2008). It is virtually impossible to estimate what that figure will grow to by 2019, when the first wave of three strikes convicted offenders will pursue parole options.

Discussion

The problem facing California, if not the nation, is that of reconciling the expenses of implementing the three strikes law within feasible parameters, or of putting forth an alternative solution. That three strikes is enormously costly is a reality. What must occur, then, is an evaluation of the law itself. No determination can be reasonably made of justifying such an expense without an assessment of the actual value of the object itself. In undertaking this approach, in fact, financial considerations must be set aside, for any action or process of the criminal justice system must, first and foremost, be validated as an essential entity before fiscal concerns may be attached to it.

That three strikes is controversial is hardly surprising. What is more interesting is how, since its 1994 inception, it has become somewhat ingrained within the society, and how the actual controversy has diminished because of this. Generally speaking, it does not appear that the public is particularly pleased with how three strikes has thus far produced results or diminished violent crime; rather, it is simply that the novelty is gone and it has been accepted as a flawed, but implacable, component within the criminal justice system.

As was observed, the horrific murder of a young girl in California triggered the law’s enactment. It is, therefore, worthwhile to examine the national consciousness regarding crime before this incident. For three strikes to have gained the immense support it did in California, for example, something beyond even a single, brutal crime, and one widely sensationalized by the media, had to be responsible. The support three strikes overwhelmingly received indicates a nation severely disappointed in the system in place to protect it. At the time, in the 1990s, the country was very much conflicted in regard to criminal offenses; decades of psychological and sociological enlightenment and research had pointed to an array of factors responsible for crime, which had served to present much of it as reactive, or as repercussions of various kinds of abuse. Moreover, those same decades had promoted, at least in the larger social consciousness, a sense of shared responsibility; it was widely perceived at the time that “evil” was not at the heart of the offender, and that actual crime was a thing which could be discouraged by social and humanitarian efforts.

Simultaneously, the emerging drug culture had created a new kind of crime, and one which eclipsed previous forms in both scope and intensity. It may have been understood by the public that drug addicts are victims themselves, but this relative degree of sympathy paled in contrast to the havoc destroying lives and communities. Then, there was a disturbingly meaningless aspect to drug-generated violence; like psychotic brutality, it seemed to exist of its own volition. Most importantly, it had by no means diminished, despite an ostensibly more enlightened culture. A cultural reactionary response was, in a sense, perfectly enabled by the 1990s.

People were, plainly, frightened. They were as well somewhat appalled by their own efforts to understand, and consequently aid, the criminal element, for violence was escalating. The Polly Klaas murder merely lit the national fuse, so to speak, and three strikes was the defiant refutation of former ideals. Citizens voted it in and embraced it because it was a direct response from the government to their great dissatisfaction with the state of the criminal justice system; it offered a basic means of resolving a complex issue, and had a pleasing, “panacea” quality to it; and it boasted, not incidentally, an attractive catchphrase, one which struck a chord in cherished traditions of Americana (Samaha, 2010, p. 67). “Three strikes, and you’re out”: this was wholesome common sense, and American fairness and justice at work.

This established, the analysis should then go to a basic follow-up: is the nation willing to pay for so clearly an expensive means of addressing serious crime? The indulgence of a hypothetical is permitted here, for the answer relies on another question. That is to say, the answer would most likely be resoundingly in the affirmative, provided the law worked. With the understanding in place that no single aspect of the criminal justice system lends itself to an indisputable and consistent value, this must be examined. Three strikes exists in some form in twenty-four states, and may be written into the statutes of more, and California, as noted, provides the best example of its being adamantly adhered to. The evidence as it exists thus far must then be scrutinized.

As may be anticipated, differing sides present vastly contrasting views and forms of evidence, to either defend or oppose three strikes. What is most notable within this, however, is that support is primarily based, not on data and research, but on the visceral elements which served to initially establish three strikes. It is argued for, not because the facts indicate a significant reduction of crime because of it, but because it resonates with a sense of ethics and morality long suppressed. This manner of support is very much reactive; it is an ongoing backlash against a court system that was perceived, for a very long time, to “coddle” criminals. While this is certainly comprehensible, it does not address known realities, and these present a disparaging picture of the law’s consequences to date.

Setting aside, again, the exorbitant cost factors, the three strikes law as enforced in California has provided no proven, substantial benefit to the public. Proponents of the law are quick to point out that serious crimes in California has been substantially reduced, and there are facts to support this assertion. Unfortunately, none actually correlate to the three strikes law, for the overriding reality is that serious crime in most Western nations began to decline in the early 1990s. As pointed out by University of Wellington Professor John Pratt, Canada, for instance, which has nothing resembling three strikes on its statutes, has experienced a consistent reduction in serious and/or violent crime during this period (2009).

Conversely, studies on the actual effects of three strikes on the criminal justice system invariably reveal that the law has greatly disrupted the efficiency of the courts, by way of backlogged court dates and, more disturbingly, questionable approaches in prosecutorial policies (Helfgott, 2008, p. 441). Discretionary prosecution appears to be, in fact, a leading argument against any possible value of three strikes law in its existing form. In California, in fact, which would seem to be most concerned with applying three strikes to violent offenders, discretion and extreme variations in law application are evident. The disparities in sentencing in the state have resulted in a situation wherein an offender could be given a twenty-five year, or life, sentence for the same crime that would, in a neighboring county, earn him am eight-month sentence (Braswell, McCarthy, & McCarthy, 2011, p. 185). It appears that the same judicial discretion essential for an ethical application of three strikes renders it most vulnerable to criticism and/or abuse.

Certain cases, in fact, have attracted worldwide attention. In 1995, a California man named Leandro Andrade was caught stealing videotapes from a K-Mart store. Andrade had a record, albeit of a non-violent variety; he had been previously convicted on counts of petty theft and non-confrontational burglary. The new charge of two counts of petty theft – with a prior conviction – was all that was necessary to qualify Andrade for sentencing under three strikes, and he was given two twenty-five year terms to serve. The case reached the United States Supreme Court, which “held that sentencing a convict under the California three strikes law to fifty years to life in prison for two counts of petty theft was not contrary to…Supreme Court jurisprudence” (Horn, 2004, p. 687). There was minimal dissension on the bench, as the justices strictly interpreted the letter of the law.

This, then, goes to the core of any valid assessment of three strikes as a viable statute. California vigorously enforces the law, to the extent that, as the law permits, prior misdemeanor convictions may be applied to the “count”; other states, as noted in Georgia, reserve the law for violent criminal offenders with histories reflective of the same. The problem then appears to be in the arbitrary manner in which the law may be interpreted, for this goes to both the ethical basis of the statute, as well as to the temporarily set aside issue of financial burden. It is certainly comprehensible that a community, a state, or a nation would seek to inflict extended incarceration upon dangerous offenders. This in itself creates an array of dilemmas, not the least of which is cost, but the foundational impetus is sound. Experts may debate endlessly on possibilities for rehabilitation, as well as to victimizing factors which fuel criminal activity and must be addressed by the society. The more pressing reality, however, is that extreme violence must not be tolerated within the society, and the people have the right to demand that their government safeguard them from those known to be dangerous. If this is what three strikes may accomplish, it has great value as a statute within the system.

As has been discussed, before the viability of paying for the effects of three strikes legislation can be fairly ascertained, the law itself must be examined as it currently exists. The “law” is, in fact, many laws, which vary from state to state. The California version, however, most applicable here, may serve as a template. Essentially, it requires the courts to impose minimum sentences on offenders who have at least two prior convictions, presumably of a “serious” nature. These sentences, under three strikes, typically run to at least twenty-five years.

Given the existing evidence, both in California and elsewhere, it appears that the single most significant benefit to emerge from three strikes law is that which generated it to begin with; the law is a direct manifestation of an urgent and national concern. The public is no longer prepared to trust completely in a court system that has permitted violent predators to be released and, while the impetus itself is not necessarily praiseworthy, this does reflect the essence of a republic in action. It is the will of the society which must, finally, dictate the law governing it, and three strikes represents a telling example of that will in full expression.

Negative results of three strikes law as it has thus far been implemented, regrettably, abound, and are not restricted to the questionable practices implicit in discretionary prosecution. For one thing, the reduction in violent crime in California may be at least partially attributed to three strikes, and not in a way advantageous to it; there is evidence that habitual offenders, unwilling to risk so drastic a sentence, simply move to other states. Crime is not then prevented, but relocated. Then, there is as well evidence to support an actual motivation for violent crime as arising from the law itself. That is, offenders facing a third and likely final conviction develop a “nothing to lose” mentality which promotes an excess that a less severe sentencing system would not encourage (Tibbetts, 2011, p. 228).

There have been, as well, noted disparities in how three strikes is applied to different racial groups, as issues of age and gender also seem to influence court rulings to sentence in accordance with the law. These issues, however, only reflect the greater one which demands further attention, that of “discretionary” application on a wider scale. Certain statistics speak for themselves: in California, “Of the 8,381 persons serving a “third-strike” sentence in September, 2008, 3,140 were from Los Angeles County and 659 were from San Diego County, while only 39 were from San Francisco County” (Nellis, King, 2009, p. 29). Evidently, political and/or judicial concerns are playing extraordinarily pronounced roles; there is no other way to reasonably account for such striking disparities. Additionally, and equally relevant, is the data from the same year which confirms that fewer than two percent of those serving a three strike sentence were convicted of murder, or even manslaughter. It must be remembered that the impetus for three strikes was a gruesome murder. Given the research, it would seem that the law is most definitely being enforced, but not as it was intended to be.

Finally, it is necessary to return to the financial bottom line. The costs of three strikes are comprised of elements which go well beyond the feeding and housing of suspects; they begin in the pre-conviction phases. Estimates vary by state, but it is estimated that fingerprinting a suspect alone may run to seventy-five dollars (CDCR, 1997). Obviously, this process, as do all others relating to the booking of a suspect, involves police working hours and staffing. Most crucially, the detaining of suspects requires space, and it is inevitable that three strikes is stretching existing detention space to its limit. Before the law went into effect, jail facilities, particularly on weekends, frequently were compelled to “double up”, or place two or more arrested persons in cells designed to hold one.

Essentially, once an arrest is made, the suspect is supported by the taxpayers. That those arrested with prior convictions and facing the full penalty of three strikes are more likely to remain incarcerated does not lessen the early expenses incurred. Housing, meals, arraignment, access to court-appointed attorneys, and all other components of the pre-conviction period are costly; three strikes, in mandating an emphasis on detention, is significantly adding to the existing expenses of this phase within the system. As the system is in place to both determine guilt and administer punishment, the reality is that many suspected offenders generate costs as they move toward an eventual release because these expenses apply to both the guilty and the innocent (Feeley, 1992, p. 31), or at least those cleared from charges.

Within two years of three strikes, the California courts were feeling the pressures created by the law, and stridently applying for additional financial aid. In 1996, the California legislature authorized $3.5 million beyond the budget for the judicial and penal systems, in order to ease the increased burdens. The dramatic rise in the percentage of third-strike cases on their way to trial brought with it an immense strain on the administrative workload. The new demands for preparing records, certifying prior convictions, collecting data, and preparing cases for appeal required, and require, extensive staff hours. Then, other problems emerged; the necessary focus on these criminal matters created a backlog of civil cases, and over thirty retired judges were reinstalled to address this neglected arena (Walsh, 2007, p. 110). Interestingly, the state of Georgia, also enforcing the three strike law, has not been so taxed, chiefly because its version of the law restricts the terms of it to truly violent offenders. As will be seen, this offers California a viable option, if it is to retain three strikes.

Another issue within the pre-conviction period lies in how such an increase in trials impacts on the public, and beyond the form of taxation. Bench trials, in which only a judge presides, are typical in California for less serious offenses. Felony cases, however, which ordinarily incorporate those facing three strikes convictions, require a jury trial (Lawrence, 2009, p. 185). Not only does this entail the lengthy and expensive process of jury selection, it demands a far great jury pool, and increasing numbers of citizens are being diverted from their lives to perform this duty. That is to say, pleading guilty to the “third strike” will likely translate to life incarceration or a twenty-five year sentence, and offenders facing three-strike terms are far more prone today to seek a trial, typically with an attorney provided by the court and paid for by taxes

As long as the law remains in force, it is likely that something near to an exponential rise in the numbers of incarcerated offenders will occur, as three strikes inherently denies possibilities for release.

As with the other issues arising from three strikes, the consequences of prison overcrowding are not confined to the purely fiscal, as dramatic as these are. Overcrowding in prisons, particularly in regard to those housing violent, repeat offenders, breeds an array of serious problems of itself. Control, when numbers are out of hand, is stretched beyond capacity. Wardens and prison guards face growing numbers of inmate populations as their own numbers remain essentially unchanged, and a different form of authority then arises in the overcrowded jails. The prison gang becomes the real authority, and one based upon violence and, typically, drug trafficking. Prison gangs serve to provide a hierarchy inmates are compelled to respect, albeit of a blatantly illegal and dangerous order. The reality for guards and officers, given the poor state of modern prison conditions, is that gangs absorb violent outbursts which would otherwise be directed at them (Carlson, Garrett, 2008, p. 67). Given a scenario wherein the offenders have no expectation of release and subsequently “nothing to lose”, as is the case with three strikes law, this form of internal and illegal authority delegation can only increase when greater numbers of convicted offenders are added to the already overcrowded conditions.

If California’s three strikes law irrefutably translates to an increased number of imprisoned offenders, it carries with a corollary, and incalculably costly, effect: length of sentencing. Three strikes was enacted and exists to serve one purpose, it must be remembered: that of maintaining serious offenders in prison for life, or at least for a quarter of a century. As noted, this implies an almost fundamental reversal in what was at least the ostensible purpose of the criminal justice system, which was historically devised to encourage rehabilitation and the release of reformed offenders into mainstream society. If the underlying concept of the “penitentiary”, or the institution wherein the offender would be, eventually, penitent and seek to rejoin the world as a rehabilitated person, was never particularly pragmatic, it nonetheless provided a cycle of sorts. Release was the goal, and not merely of the prisoner; the inherent limitations of penal institutions depend upon a changing population. With three strikes, however, the gates stay locked. With fewer prisoners leaving, the inmate population can only dramatically expand.

In 2010, there were 41,284 prisoners serving time under the three strikes law, which requires an absolute minimum 25-year sentence for felons so designated. In fiscal terms, the math is staggering: the cost to taxpayers for housing an inmate has been determined to be about $35,000 annually (Giacopuzzi, 2009). As inmates age, costs escalate for the same reasons that ordinary costs increase for non-inmates: simply, citizens require more aid as they get older. In the 10-year period of 1994 to 2004, from 5,500 to 16,300, the number of prisoners aged fifty and older rose from 5, 500 to 16, 300 (Associated Press, 2005). Geriatric prisoners develop health issues which require medical treatment far more often than do younger inmates, and the bills mount. Inmates age as do other people, and the taxpayers must attend to their living conditions. With three strikes in effect, it is inevitable that these figures must increase.

The final component regarding the financial distress, if not impossibility, of observing the three strikes law resides, somewhat ironically, in those offenders who do achieve parole in this system. With regard to California, the process is as stringent as may be seen anywhere in the nation, as the state adheres most strenuously to either twenty-five year sentences or life imprisonment for its convicted “third-strikers”. Concomitant to this specific issue is that of diligence, which in turn goes to expenses. Nationally and historically, parole procedures have been notoriously lax, certainly in regard to less dangerous offenders, and this is a result of the extreme difficulty in performing the function itself. It is inherently dependent on the cooperation of the offender, who is within mainstream society; maintaining a keen awareness of how the released offender is adapting, and whether or not he or she is obeying the law, is rendered an unrealistic goal without that cooperation, for there are no prison confines keeping the individual safely in check. The spirit of three strikes, however, would insist upon a rigorous surveillance of paroled third-strikers. A new means of regulating parole would actually need to be engineered, and one which would substantially add to the already exorbitant costs of the existing system.

Rationale for Prospective Solutions

The preponderance of information pointing to serious deficiencies in both the application and effects of three strikes law would indicate a suggested elimination of it. To begin with, as is well known, the power to impose especially lengthy or lifetime sentences resides within the courts without the statute. There is, plainly speaking, nothing which prohibits a court from sentencing a convicted, violent offender to the full extent of the law. Then, there is no actual evidence that three strikes accomplishes either diminished recidivism or a reduction in crime. What is known, and what is annually growing in impact, is how the law has created crippling burdens on a system unable to pay for its results. Consequently, the logical recommendation would be to discard the law as an unnecessary and costly experiment in justice.

To do this, however, would solve only one problem, if that; it would eliminate one source of the overcrowding creating dangerous prison conditions, and it would ease one cause of court congestion and case backlog. Removing three strikes from the California statutes, or indeed from all those of the other states enacting it, may possibly engender a return to the criminal justice system in operation prior to 1994. This is not an especially desirable outcome, and any genuine evaluation of how to deal with three strikes must incorporate a sense of how the entire system may benefit from its restructuring. Moreover, and by no means least importantly, to dismiss three strikes would be to disregard an urgent, if poorly focused, viewpoint from the society. That three strikes remains enforced, vast problems notwithstanding, is evidence of how vital these public concerns remain.

Conclusion

What must be first accepted is that eliminating three strikes will not vastly improve the existing criminal justice system. As obvious as that statement is, it is necessary to reinforce the fact that there is a reasonable justification for enacting three strikes legislation. What is essential, and what goes as well to the immense financial issues created by the existing incarnation of the law, is that it be radically streamlined and divested of much of its discretionary latitude. For three strikes to succeed, it must be dramatically revised.

As has been shown, three strikes is responsible for large numbers of non-violent offenders facing unduly long sentences, with the ensuing issues exacerbating a strained system. The courts cannot maintain the activity levels of the appeals processes, as they are already overburdened with cases fighting potential three strikes convictions. Moreover, as the May, 2011, U.S. Supreme Court decision powerfully reinforced, three strikes has brought about prison circumstances utterly untenable. The justices determined that, as the most minimal care cannot be exercised in the California prisons, and as three strikes crises include an elevated suicide rate within the prison population, thirty thousand inmates were to be released (Liptak, 2011). In a striking irony, the Court has essentially determined that the effects of three strikes in California have led to conditions of cruel and unusual punishment. No ruling could more dramatically go to the impossibility of sustaining three strikes as it has thus far been implemented. Justice must be served, but the fact remains that California cannot maintain the cost of the three strikes law as it is enforced in its present form, and only a severe modification of it can justify its presence.

Recommended Action

What is crucial to regard in any scenario addressing action is one component: the great majority of three strike offenders are non-violent. Consequently, a law as severe, if not Draconian, as three strikes should be in place only to confine without parole those offenders with histories of violent convictions. Streamlining the law only in this fashion, which would of necessity remove irrelevant misdemeanor and minor offenses from the criteria, would vastly free the courts and, ultimately, ease the congestion in the prisons. Most importantly, the law would finally be in place as it was intended to be: as an unalterable stance against the horrors of criminal violence.

This is not to suggest that a greater leniency be shown to other offenders; crimes should, as always, dictate the appropriate judicial response and punishment. This is, in fact, the reasoning behind a revised three strikes, for its severity would match only that of those to whom it applies. As it stands now, California is facing crippling expenses due to a flagrant application of this single law. The intense labor and cost of trying and convicting thirty thousands inmates has been rendered pointless by the Supreme Court’s 2011 ruling, which must create further and massive difficulties for the California cities now responsible for integrating so many convicted offenders into mainstream society safely. Other states, more focused an applying three strikes to truly dangerous offenders, are less burdened.

It is therefore earnestly recommended that the California state legislature follow this example and immediately revise the existing statute, which would then be presented to voters as a referendum or proposition. This revision should incorporate language limiting the automatic application of three strikes to violent felonies, including murder, kidnapping, rape, assault, and armed robbery. The revised language should, moreover, provide that such a limitation of automatic application does not preclude the court’s right to employ three strikes in other, not essentially violent, cases. This revision should be undertaken as soon as possible; the recent Supreme Court ruling clearly indicates that the situation thus far, unchecked, has three strokes law already undoing its own, original ends.

It is reasonable to assume that the voters, assured of the intent to practice three strikes against the violent offenders who were, in fact, its original inspiration, would swiftly vote the amendment into statute form. Three strikes has been, thus far, unsuccessful, but it need not be. Its viability would be vastly enhanced, if not completely validated, by an adherence within the California criminal justice system to employ the law only upon habitually violent offenders.

References

Associated Press. (October 20, 2005.) Report: Thousands Serving Time Under Three Strikes Law. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from http://www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/three_strikes_articles.htm

Bazelon, E. (May 21, 2010.) “Arguing Three Strikes.” The New York Times. Retrieved May 27, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23strikes-t.html

Braswell, M. C., McCarthy, B. R., & McCarthy, B. J. (2011.) Justice, Crime, and Ethics. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Inc.

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. (1999.) “The Impact of Three Strikes on Local Jails.” Corrections Standards Authority. Retrieved May 27, 2010, from http://www.cdcr.ca.gov/CSA/FSO/3_Strikes.html

Carlson, P. M., & Garrett, J. S. (2008.) Prison and Jail Administration: Practice and Theory. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.

Dichiara, A. P. (February 4, 2008.) Costs Exceed Benefit of Three Strikes Law. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from http://www.hartfordinfo.org/issues/documents/prisonerre-entry/hbj_020408.asp

Executive Summary. (2007.) Three Strikes Laws: Five Years Later. Retrieved May 20, 2011, from www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/3strikes.pdf

Feeley, M. M. (1992.) The Process Is the Punishment: Handling Cases in a Lower Criminal Court. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Giacopuzzi, G. (May 8, 2009.) California’s Three Strikes Law, Fifteen Years Later. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from http://www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/three_strikes_articles.htm

Greifinger, R. B. (2007.) Public Health Behind Bars: From Prisons to Communities. New York, NY: Springer Science Publishing.

Helfgott, J. B. (2008.) Criminal Behavior: Theories, Typologies, and Criminal Justice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Horn, D. “Lockyer v. Andrade: California Three Strikes Law Survives Challenge Based on Federal Law That Is Anything But ‘Clearly Established’.” (Spring, 2004.) Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 94, No. 3. pp. 687-722.

Lawrence, D. G. (2009.) California: The Politics of Diversity. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.

Liptak, A. (May 23, 2011.) Justices, 5-4, Tell California to Cut Prison Population. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/24scotus.html?_r=2

Nellis, A., & King, R. S. (July, 2009.) No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America. The Sentencing Project. Washington, D.C. Retrieved May 28, 2011, from http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc…inc_noexit.pdf

New Haven Register Editor. (September 20, 2007.) “3 Strikes” Law Is Costly Last Resort. Retrieved May 19, 20011, from http://www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/three_strikes_articles.htm

Pratt, J. (2009.) 10 Good Reasons to Ditch Three Strikes. The Dominion Post. Retrieved May 29, 2011, from http://www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/three_strikes_articles.htm

Samaha, J. (2010.) Criminal Law. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.

Tibbetts, S. G. (2011.) Criminological Theory: The Essentials. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Walsh, J. E. (2007.) Three Strike Laws. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Annotated Reference List

Report: Thousands Serving Time Under Three Strikes Law, (Associated Press article on 2005 state of three strikes.)

“Arguing Three Strikes,”, Emily Bazelon (New York Times editorial from 2010.)

Justice, Crime, and Ethics, Michael Braswell, Belinda McCarthy, & Bernard McCarthy (Text on justice ideologies.)

“The Impact of Three Strikes on Local Jails,” (Report from California Depart of Corrections website, 1999.)

Prison and Jail Administration: Practice and Theory, Peter Carlson & Judith Garrett (2008 text on mechanics and issues of the penal system.)

Costs Exceed Benefit of Three Strikes Law, Albert Dichiara (Fact-based opinion piece from 2011 arguing against three strikes.)

Three Strikes Laws: Five Years Later, Executive Summary (From non-profit Prison Policy Initiative website.)

The Process Is the Punishment: Handling Cases in a Lower Criminal Court., Malcolm Feeley (1992 text arguing reform in criminal process systems.)

California’s Three Strikes Law, Fifteen Years Later, Gina Giacopuzzi (Updated status on three strikes issues from San Diego news source.)

Public Health Behind Bars: From Prisons to Communities, Robert Greifinger (Text examining relationships between safety and health in prisons and cities/communities.)

Criminal Behavior: Theories, Typologies, and Criminal Justice, Jacqueline Helfgott (Text from 2008, exploring criminal pathologies.)

“Lockyer v. Andrade: California Three Strikes Law Survives Challenge Based on Federal Law That Is Anything But ‘Clearly Established’,” Doyle Horn (Law Journal article focusing on watershed three strikes case of Leandro Andrade.)

California: The Politics of Diversity, David Lawrence (2009 text with focus on backgrounds and causes of specific California legislation.)

Justices, 5-4, Tell California to Cut Prison Population, Adam Liptak (2011 New York Times article recounting landmark USSC decision.)

No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America, Ashley Nellis & Ryan King (Analysis and projections from Washington, D.C.’s Sentencing Project commission.)

“3 Strikes” Law Is Costly Last Resort,” (2007 New Haven, CT, editorial.)

10 Good Reasons to Ditch Three Strikes, John Pratt (Australian professor’s refutation of thress strikes, from an international perspective.)

Criminal Law, Joel Samaha (Exhaustive text from 2010 on the subject.)

Criminological Theory: The Essentials, Stephen Tibbetts (2011 edition of comprehensive volume addressing facets of the subject.)

Three Strike Laws, Jennifer Edwards Walsh (2007 volume providing background and status of three strikes nationally.)

Annotated Bibliography

Associated Press. (October 20, 2005.) Report: Thousands Serving Time Under Three Strikes Law. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from http://www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/three_strikes_articles.htm

This website is an invaluable resource for the examination of three strikes law issues, particularly with regard to consequences of the law to the criminal justice system. A variety of articles addresses individual cases as representative of three strikes fallibility, while other reflect researched editorial assessment from leading news journals. The article cited is employed for both its current bearing on three strikes and its impartial documenting of the state of prison overcrowding.

Bazelon, E. (May 21, 2010.) “Arguing Three Strikes.” The New York Times. Retrieved May 27, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23strikes-t.html

Journalist Emily Bazelon, reporting for the esteemed New York Times, uses a single case of evident injustice in the application of three strikes to deeply examine the history and current manifestations of the law, with particular regard to California. There is a decidedly contrary view of the law taken in the article, but an overwhelming amount of data supports this.

Braswell, M. C., McCarthy, B. R., & McCarthy, B. J. (2011.) Justice, Crime, and Ethics. Burlington, MA: Elsevier Inc.

This seventh edition of the volume, with updated material touching upon three strikes, is a comprehensive, well-researched, and academically sound text addressing the myriad factors involved in the title elements. The authors occasionally take a casual tone, but the integrity of the work is not diminished by this. Moreover, a substantial section deals with three strikes, as the authors employ it to highlight ethical dilemmas within the justice system.

This article was retrieved from the website because its date provides a specifically isolated focus; in 1999, as is obvious, repercussions of three strikes were only beginning to be manifested, and it is important to view how the issue was perceived then, and by the state of California itself. It is most interesting that the article indicates a long-term stabilization of inmate populations, pointing to an agenda as having been the work’s impetus.

Carlson, P. M., & Garrett, J. S. (2008.) Prison and Jail Administration: Practice and Theory. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.

This second edition is a truly exhaustive presentation of the title subject matter, tracing the evolution of prison administration from its earliest history in the United States to modern practices and issues. While the work devotes only minimal space to three strikes problems and/or circumstances, the unimpeachable integrity of the book adds weight to the conclusions reached, which reflect serious overcrowding as threatening administration.

Dichiara, A. P. (February 4, 2008.) Costs Exceed Benefit of Three Strikes Law. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from http://www.hartfordinfo.org/issues/documents/prisonerreentry/hbj_020408.asp

Dr. Dichiara presents an informed opinion piece here, which briefly refers to several major issues arising from three strikes, and issues likely to worsen. The article is editorialized, but sparingly so; the tone and research is more on the order of a news feature, and Dichiara’s position as the Director of Criminal Justice at the University of Hartford further validates the piece.

Executive Summary. (2007.) Three Strikes Laws: Five Years Later. Retrieved May 20, 2011, from www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/3strikes.pdf

This is a lengthy and well-researched forecast of potential three strikes issues, as well as a practical assessment of how three strikes had played out in its first five years of application. The work is particularly of value in that it contrasts California’s three strikes consequences with those of other states enforcing variations of the law.

Feeley, M. M. (1992.) The Process Is the Punishment: Handling Cases in a Lower Criminal Court. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

While three strikes law itself is not addressed in Feeley’s work, the book is greatly valuable as an in-depth examination of the many complications and potential abuses within lower criminal court processes. Feeley approaches the problems from a national viewpoint, and his admittedly derogatory stance is supported by an extraordinary amount of valid evidence.

Giacopuzzi, G. (May 8, 2009.) California’s Three Strikes Law, Fifteen Years Later. Retrieved May 19, 2011, from http://www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/three_strikes_articles.htm

Gina Giacopuzzi’s piece is important as a brief, but nonetheless comprehensive, view of three strikes at the juncture indicated in the article’s title. She examines how voter influence remains a potent factor in the maintenance of three strikes in California, and she presents statements and evidence from supporters and opponents. While the article is impartial, more space is allotted to opposition viewpoints and data.

Greifinger, R. B. (2007.) Public Health Behind Bars: From Prisons to Communities. New York, NY: Springer Science Publishing.

The value of Greifinger’s work is its focus on how health is managed – and threatened – within and external to prison communities. Three strikes is, interestingly, not covered in the volume, but the consequences of the mismanagement of the subject goes very much to the law, and the repercussions of it faced by California. Most effectively, it establishes the often ignored link between public safety and how prisons are maintained.

Helfgott, J. B. (2008.) Criminal Behavior: Theories, Typologies, and Criminal Justice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Helfgott presents a lucid, if disturbing, analysis of criminal pathologies, and how these go to criminal behavior, public reaction, and sentencing and treatment. There is a significant focus on three strikes here, for Helfgott views the law as both an important measure of public fear and a means of separating offenders by violent and non-violent pathologies. Obliquely, then, the work goes to reinforcing a need for three strikes to be tailored to only violent, habitual criminals.

This is a greatly important contribution to three strikes investigations because it exactingly documents the circumstances of the Andrade case, which remains a potent argument against the inherent flaws of California’s existing three strikes law. Opening with the striking Supreme Court ruling upholding Andrade’s three strikes conviction based on misdemeanor offenses, the intrinsic and self-defeating policies of three strikes are blatantly exposed.

Lawrence, D. G. (2009.) California: The Politics of Diversity. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.

Lawrence’s sixth edition provides an interesting and necessary view of California’s unique demographics, and how these play into the state’s laws and voter responses. This specific approach underscores how California’s version of three strikes is inherently based upon cultural and regional considerations not affecting other states. Relevant to this is Lawrence’s researched and compelling connection between California voters and lawmakers.

Liptak, A. (May 23, 2011.) Justices, 5-4, Tell California to Cut Prison Population. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/24scotus.html?_r=2

This very recent Supreme Court decision, as presented in the article, is a powerful refutation of existing three strikes law in California, and consequently excerpted in the paper’s recommendation/conclusion. That the highest court in the land essentially ordered a reversal of years of effort and cost, all engaged in to enforce three strikes, is tantamount to a judicial opposition to the law itself, for the consequences so egregious to the USSC were, and are, inevitable results of three strikes legislation.

This study, containing exhaustive data and findings, touches upon three strikes as yet another, and potentially most drastic, cause of prison overcrowding. All states are compared to one another in regard to how their courts impose life sentences, and factors of juvenile and racial components are as well examined. Three strikes is not presented as the foremost problem here but, with prosecutorial discretion and aging juvenile offender populations, it is set forth as a major issue.

New Haven Register Editor. (September 20, 2007.) “3 Strikes” Law Is Costly Last Resort. Retrieved May 19, 20011, from http://www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/three_strikes_articles.htm

This brief article is an exhortation to the people of Connecticut, in that it blatantly lists the financial crises ensuing from California’s three strikes law and urges Connecticut to avoid so disastrous a path. The tone is editorial, but the facts presented are sound.

Pratt, J. (2009.) 10 Good Reasons to Ditch Three Strikes. The Dominion Post. Retrieved May 29, 2011, from http://www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/three_strikes_articles.htm

The value of Professor Pratt’s article is that it provides an international perspective on three strikes. Writing with Australia and New Zealand chiefly in mind, Pratt asserts that these nations must consider the United States example before implementing three strikes law. The ten reasons are listed effectively, and the most potent point among them is that that New York state, which has no three strikes legislation, has enjoyed a reduction in violent crime not seen in California.

Samaha, J. (2010.) Criminal Law. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.

This tenth edition of Joel Samaha’s text maintains its standing as an authoritative and invaluable source of information regarding virtually every aspect of the subject. With the additions of recent case and courtroom events, the book provides an understanding of the extraordinary complexities involved in the subject, while simultaneously rendering them comprehensible as interrelated policies, laws, and procedures.

Tibbetts, S. G. (2011.) Criminological Theory: The Essentials. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Criminological Theory: The Essentials gives the reader a full understanding of both how such theory is developed, and how these conclusions go to the system’s operations itself. The book is engaging reading, in that a variety of psychological ideologies are explored, and among these is the thinking fueling three strikes legislation. Tibbetts successfully presents this, and he incorporates necessary aspects of practicality and application into the psychologies examined.

Walsh, J. E. (2007.) Three Strike Laws. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

This text carefully walks the reader through the origins and history of three strikes law, and Walsh concludes with a focus on California, specifically the 2004 Proposition 66 controversy. Before this, however, California is targeted consistently as an example of problems arising in such legislation, and the author supports his assertions with excellent documentation.