Three Strikes 15 Years Later: We’re All Out -- of Money, and Time - Tamar Todd

This month the California Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped and murdered a young girl named Polly Klaas over 15 years ago. The murder of Polly Klaas led to a wave of fear among Californians. That fear quickly turned to outrage and that outrage quickly led to the most heavy-handed, over-reaching, costly, and ineffective sentencing policy in California history. This policy has cost the state billions of dollars to incarcerate thousands of people convicted of nonviolent offenses for extraordinarily long periods. This month is the 15th anniversary of California's Three Strikes law.

We now have people serving 25 years to life in California for drug possession, for stealing a pizza, or--in at least one sad case--a few chocolate chip cookies. Under California's Three Strikes law, first and second "strikes" are counted by individual charges, rather than individual criminal cases. For example, there are 3,520 people in California's prisons on second or third strikes for drug possession offenses. At least 690 of them, convicted of third strikes, are serving sentenced of 25 years to life. It costs $49,000 a year to incarcerate a person in a California prison. It costs two or three times that amount to incarcerate older persons because of health care costs. Most persons serving a third strike will grow old and die in prison. It is costing Californians over $172 million each year to house persons convicted of a second or third strike for simple drug possession. Drug treatment is far cheaper--about one-tenth the cost--and far more effective. To be sure, some of the 41,089 second and third strikers in California prisons today are there for violent crimes. Those persons should receive long prison sentences--and they would have even without three strikes. But