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11 Stan. L. & Pol'y Rev. 65 (1999-2000)
Striking out: The Failure of California's Three Strikes and You're out Law

handle is hein.journals/stanlp11 and id is 69 raw text is: Striking Out: The Failure of California's Three Strikes and You're Out Law by Mike Males & Dan Macallair On March 7, 1994, California Governor Pete Wilson signed into law one of the most punitive sentencing statutes in recent history. Dubbed Three Strikes and You're Out, the law mandated a minimum 25-years-to- life indeterminate sentence for felony offenders who have two or more prior serious or violent felonies.' For felons with one previous violent or serious felony, the law doubled the presumptive prison sentence.2 Later that year, in the wake of .the widely publicized Polly Klaas case,3 the law was overwhelmingly affirmed by three-fourths of California voters through a statewide initiative (Proposition 184).' Under the Three Strikes law, serious and violent felonies include This study... finds virtually no evidence supporting the Three Strikes law's deterrent or selective incapacitation effect on targeted populations or jurisdictions most affected. (but are not limited to) murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, lewd acts with a child, kidnapping, arson, bombing, providing hard drugs to a minor, and residential burglary with a weapon.' Unlike other states' versions of Three Strikes, California's version does not require the Third Strike to be violent or Mike A. Males is a research fellow at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice's Justice Policy Institute and holds a Ph.D at the University of California Irvine. Dan Macallair is the Associate Director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and Justice Policy Institute. He also teaches in the Criminal Justice Program at San Francisco State University. The authors thank Khaled Taqi-Eddin for his research assistance on the paper. serious to qualify for a life sentence. Furthermore, many offenses such as petty theft, drug possession, or weapons possessions, which might be minor felonies, may be considered a Third Strike.7 In 1997, over 60 percent of all Third Strike offenders were sentenced for nonviolent and nonserious offenses. The severe nature of Three Strikes was intended to maximize the criminal justice system's deterrent and selective incapacitation effects. Under the deterrence theory, individuals are dissuaded from criminal activity through the threat of state-imposed penalties.9 Under the selective incapacitation theory, crime is reduced by incapacitating a small group of repetitive offenders, which this theory assumes are responsible for a large portion of serious crime.' Three Strikes' opponents claim that the itatute is misguided because it targets older offenders who are reaching the end of their crime prone' years.I Historically, the majority of chronic offenders have stopped committing crimes after age 28.2 The crime prone years are generally thought to be between the ages of 14 and 28.' However, current crime trends suggest an aging offender population (see Table 1). Therefore, in theory at least, Three Strikes laws are correctly targeted at the state's growing crime population of offenders over the age of 25. In the 1998 California governor's race, both major party candidates credited the Three Strikes law with VOLUME 11:1 1999

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