California's Three Strikes Law: Impact, Cases, and Criticism
This paper examines California's Three Strikes Law (Penal Code 1170.12), enacted in 1994 following high-profile murders committed by repeat offenders. The paper traces the law's origins, outlines its provisions, and analyzes real cases — including Jona Rottenberg and Leandro Andrade — to illustrate how the law has been applied to non-violent offenders. It explores the law's financial burden on California taxpayers, its disproportionate impact on racial minorities, and the broader consequences for prison overcrowding, educational funding, and public safety. Drawing on legal commentary and scholarly sources, the paper argues that while the law was designed to incapacitate violent habitual criminals, its broad application has produced significant unintended consequences.
- Introduction and Origins of the Three Strikes Law: Political and emotional origins of the 1994 law
- Provisions and Expected Outcomes: Sentencing rules, projected costs and crime reductions
- Case Studies: Non-Violent Offenders Under the Law: Rottenberg and Andrade cases illustrate law's overreach
- Supreme Court Scrutiny and Legal Debate: Federal courts and justices debate proportionality
- Unintended Consequences and Broader Social Impact: Prison crowding, racial disparities, and tax burdens
- Conclusion: Law's broad impact on criminals and law-abiding citizens
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its policy analysis in concrete cases — Jona Rottenberg and Leandro Andrade — giving abstract legal arguments a human dimension that strengthens the critique.
- It balances the law's stated intentions against documented outcomes, acknowledging the perspective of supporters before presenting the counterevidence.
- The paper connects micro-level case outcomes to macro-level effects (taxpayer costs, racial disparities, educational funding cuts), demonstrating awareness of systemic consequences.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper uses case-based reasoning as evidence for a policy critique. Rather than relying solely on statistics, it builds its argument through specific judicial examples and direct quotations from legal actors (a public defender, a Supreme Court justice), then extrapolates to broader conclusions. This technique illustrates how individual cases can expose flaws in broadly written legislation.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with the law's political and emotional origins, then details its provisions and projected costs. It moves into two illustrative case studies before examining Supreme Court responses. The penultimate section broadens the analysis to social and financial consequences, and a final paragraph synthesizes the argument using Foucault's critique of punishment as crime reduction. The bibliography lists seven sources across legal, journalistic, and policy genres.
Introduction and Origins of the Three Strikes Law
In California, there has been a serious attempt to control crime. Various laws have been enacted to address criminals who are repeatedly caught committing serious offenses. Penal Code 1170.12 (Proposition 184) was one such law, passed by California voters in March 1994. The Penal Code is popularly known as "Three Strikes and You Are Out."
The movement began when Mike Reynolds drafted legislation in response to the murder of his daughter, Kimber Reynolds, by a career criminal. The bill was killed in committee (Vitiello, 1997). Reynolds then began collecting signatures to advance the bill through a ballot initiative. In the meantime, a 12-year-old girl named Polly Klaas was kidnapped during a slumber party and subsequently murdered. The perpetrator in that case also had a prior criminal record, including convictions for kidnapping and burglary. The Klaas murder became an intensely emotional public issue, and the law came into effect in 1994 as a result of the crime hysteria amplified by the media and politicians, illustrating the power of public opinion in shaping legislation (Schuraldi, 1994).
Provisions and Expected Outcomes
The law prescribes that criminals convicted of a third serious crime be imprisoned for a period ranging from 25 years to life. Normally, the first two strikes must be serious felonies; the third offense can be practically any crime. For a second offense, sentences are automatically doubled. The law also clearly states that sentences must be served in prison, not on probation (RAND Corporation).
The law was expected to limit the sentence reductions that convicted criminals could earn to only 20% of their imposed sentence, compared to the standard reduction of up to 50%. It was projected to reduce serious crime by adults in California by between 22% and 34% (Schultz, 2000). Some of the crimes targeted for elimination were those causing great physical harm, such as murder, rape, and assault — offenses that were expected to constitute roughly one third of the crimes prevented. The other two thirds were to include robberies, residential burglaries, and similar offenses.
The estimated cost of implementing the law was an additional $4.5 billion to $6.5 billion, with an annual budget of $4.8 billion (Schultz, 2000). These funds were to be spent constructing and operating new prisons. These costs are net figures, and no reduction in expenditure was anticipated in practice. California's citizens ultimately had to decide whether they were willing to bear these charges.
Case Studies: Non-Violent Offenders Under the Law
To understand how the Three Strikes Law operates in practice, it is instructive to examine specific cases. Jona Rottenberg, a 38-year-old man, was convicted under the California Three Strikes Law for possessing less than one gram of cocaine. At the time of his third arrest, he already carried 13 years of prior conviction for purse snatching. Because purse snatching qualifies as a violent crime under California law, and the first two strikes must be violent in nature while the third can be anything, Rottenberg was sentenced to 25 years in prison (Los Angeles Magazine, August 1999).
Los Angeles public defender Alex Ricciardulli commented that Rottenberg's case "shows how the three-strikes law is misapplied. The whole idea is to keep violent felons off the street. [Rottenberg] is not going out and killing people — he is hurting himself" (Los Angeles Magazine, August 1999). This case highlights a central flaw in the law: the third felony is not meaningfully comparable to the earlier offenses. Rottenberg posed no danger to others. Moreover, his drug addiction had roots in his prior criminal history, suggesting that compulsory treatment for substance use disorder might have been a more effective and humane response than a 25-year prison sentence.
A second instructive case involves Leandro Andrade. On November 4, 1995, Andrade entered a Kmart store in Ontario, California, selected several videotapes, and concealed them in his clothing. The value of the stolen items was $84.70. Two weeks later, while that charge was still pending, Andrade attempted to steal additional videotapes — worth $68.84 — from a Kmart in Montclair, California. Under the Three Strikes Law, a San Bernardino jury convicted Andrade of two counts of petty theft and determined that he had committed "three prior serious or violent felony convictions" (Kirkland, 2002).
The state judge sentenced Andrade to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life. A federal appeals court ultimately reversed the decision, ruling that the punishment was disproportionate for the theft of nine videotapes. The central question this case raises is why California taxpayers should bear such significant costs to imprison individuals like Leandro Andrade for minor offenses. A correctional facility focused on job training and rehabilitation might better address the underlying circumstances that led to such crimes and reduce the likelihood of reoffending.
Conclusion
As Michael Foucault (1995) cautioned, we must rid ourselves of the assumption that penalty is, above all, a means of reducing crime. The Three Strikes Law can be seen as having a major impact not only on convicted criminals but also on law-abiding citizens. The financial, social, and racial consequences of the law extend well beyond the courtroom and into the everyday lives of Californians. A more targeted approach — one that distinguishes between violent habitual offenders and minor repeat offenders — would better serve the law's original purpose while reducing its considerable unintended costs.
Bibliography
Vitiello, Michael. "Criminal Law: Three Strikes: Can We Return to Rationality?" 87 Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1997): 395.
Schuraldi, V. "Three Strikes: The Unintended Victims." Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, San Francisco, 1994.
Schultz, David. "No Joy in Mudville Tonight: The Impact of 'Three Strike Laws' on State and Federal Corrections Policy, Resources and Crime Control." 9 Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy (2000): 557.
"You're Out! (The Three-Strikes Law in California)." Los Angeles Magazine, August 1999.
"Editorial: Cruel and Usual / California's 'Three Strikes' Law Goes Too Far." Gazette, Pittsburgh, November 12, 2002.
Kirkland, Michael. "High Court Will Hear Three-Strikes Case." Insight on the News, April 29, 2002.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.
"California's New Three-Strikes Law: Benefits, Costs, and Alternatives." RAND Corporation. Available at http://www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB4009/RB4009.word.html
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