Three Strikes Law Hits People of Color Hardest

Crisis, The, Jan/Feb 2005 by Bailey, Chauncey

In 1993, the state of Washington passed the first socalled "three strikes" law, which mandates long periods of imprisonment for people convicted of a felony on three separate occasions. Today, 21 states have adopted three-strikes laws, including California, which instituted its version in 1994. Now, more than a decade later, former secretary of State Bill Jones, who co-authored the legislation, describes the policy as "the most effective criminal justice initiative in the history of California."

But many disagree with Jones's assessment, arguing that the law has put away a disproportionate number of minorities for life. Of the 42,000 inmates imprisoned under California's three-strikes system, 45 percent are Black, 26 percent are Latino and 25 percent are White.

"We're overcrowding prisons with generations of young men of color at $31,000 a year. Nearly two-thirds are locked up for nonviolent offenses," says John W. Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League.

According to a recent Justice Policy Institute report, "Racial Divide: An Examination of the Impact of California's Three Strikes Law on African Americans and Latinos," Blacks are sentenced to life at nearly 13 times the rate of Whites. Latinos, meanwhile, are sentenced at a rate 82 percent higher than Whites under the three-strikes legislation.

Maya Harris, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California's Racial Justice Project, says California has spent $6 billion over the past decade to imprison nonviolent offenders. As inmates get older, she says, the cost of housing them could go up as much as $70,000 a year per individual for health care needs.

"The state could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year by not incarcerating nonviolent offenders," says Harris.

In November, California residents voted on whether or not to weaken the three-strikes law. Proposition 66 would have allowed people to be resentenced if their third strike involved a nonviolent crime. Shoplifting or drug possession, for example, would have no longer triggered a third strike or a sentence of 25 years to life.

The proposed legislation received support from African American celebrities such as actor Danny Glover and rapper LL Cool J. But a commercial by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger suggesting that Prop. 66 would release dangerous criminals, as well as a $1 million contribution to the pro-three-strikes campaign from the governor, ultimately defeated Proposition 66 - 53 percent to 47 percent.

The ACLU's Harris describes the impact of three strikes on people of color as "a microcosm of what's wrong with the criminal justice system."

"[It's] one of the greatest civil rights crises of our time," she says.

- Chauncey Bailey