Three Strikes and You're Out: A Look Back at Failed Prison Reform

Three strikes you're out:
Reflections on Prop 184 and Hero Presidents
By E.N. Jackson
Copyright 2009
Frost Illustrated Inc. Vol. 41, Issue 28

There is a popular running joke that Bill Clinton, not Barack Obama, was the first black president. But, was he really the grand champion of blacks and other minority groups he has been portrayed as? While it is true that, on average, African Americans generally faired better economically under Clinton than they did under other modern presidents to hold the office within the past 20 years, namely Reagan and both Bushes, it is also true that Clinton earned the dubious distinction of being the first president to have the highest African American incarceration rate of any other president. This is due in part to his signing of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994 which expanded the federal death penalty to more than 60 crimes, three not even involving murder, and his signing of the Anti- Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in1996, which restricted case review in federal courts by requiring tighter filing deadlines and limiting opportunities for evidentiary hearings. So much for due process! So before we start declaring Bill Clinton the “first black president,” let us not forget that blacks, other minorities, and the poor were among the groups hardest hit by Clinton’s “tough on crime” stance.

In terms of sheer impact, perhaps one of the most devastating criminal justice fiascos to occur during the Clinton administration was a little something called the “Three Strikes and You’re Out” rule. On Clinton’s watch, Californians voted Prop 184, more commonly referred to as the “Three Strikes and You’re Out” rule, into law in 1994. The Three Strikes law imposes longer state prison sentences upon repeat offenders. A “third strike” offense is any offense committed by a person who has two or more previous serious or violent felony convictions. So under Prop 184, the imposed sentence for any new felony conviction, even nonviolent or minor offenses, is life imprisonment with the minimum term being 25 years to life. According to the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, a non-partisan fiscal oversight body, African Americans make up the largest group of second and third strikers (37 percent), followed by Hispanics (33 percent), and whites (26 percent). Counting just thirdstrike offenses, African Americans make up the largest group there as well, at a staggering 45 percent.

Over the years, questions have been raised about the constitutionality of Prop 184; for instance, whether or not it violates the 8th Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Numerous challenges to the law have been brought before the courts, including the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2008, but with very little success. Furthermore, a recent CLAO report stated:“The decisions permitting the application of the Three Strikes law to non-serious, non-violent offenses has allowed many offenders to be sentenced to prison for extended periods, costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars.” More than $500 million to be exact. In addition to the draw-dropping price tag, Prop 184 has also fallen short in terms of efficacy. The Economist recently reported that studies show the law has not had the intended and expected impact of deterring repeat offenders from committing crimes. So what Californians thought they would get with Prop 184 is a reduction in both the crime rate and the recidivism rate. What they were not prepared or equipped to also deal with was the sudden increase in the prison population, the drastic shift in the racial make-up of inmates (to glaringly and predominately black and Latino), the increased spending that spawned an out of control state budget, and charges of civil liberties violations under the Constitution.

Measures like Prop 184 have in hindsight only served to widen, not narrow, what Marian Wright Edelman calls the “Cradle to Prison Pipeline.” According to 2007 statistics from the Children’s Defense Fund, black boys born in 2001 have a one in three chance of going to prison; black juveniles are four times more likely than their white peers to be incarcerated and five times more likely than whites to be incarcerated for drug offenses; 580,00 black males are serving sentences in state and federal prisons; and although they represent only 39 percent of the total U.S. juvenile population, minority youth represent 60 percent of convicted juveniles.

Prop 184 puts the emphasis on the wrong end of the pipeline, so to speak, because it is clear that preventive measures are the most cost-effective way to solve the prison crisis in this country, not shoveling more money and resources into the prison-industrial complex. For example, the average cost of a mentoring program per year per child is $1,000; the cost of a year’s worth of employment training is $2,500; the yearly cost per child of a high quality after school care program is $2,700; affordable housing for a low income family is $6,800; the annual per child cost of Head Start is $7,000; and the yearly per child cost of a full day early childhood program is $13,000. Compare the cost of these measures to the average annual per prisoner cost of $23,000 and the choice of where and how our tax dollars should be spent becomes obvious.

Ever since Lincoln, we have lived through the administrations of several presidents who have claimed to be champions of women, minorities and the poor. But far too often their words and their deeds turned out to be diametrically opposed. I know that when a group of people have been starved for justice as long as people of color and the poor have been, it is easy to mistake crumbs for a full course meal. But before we continue putting “hero” presidents like Lincoln, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton and even Obama on pedestals, we need to make sure that we are thinking critically about the policies these leaders support or directly put into effect. We need to take the time to examine the impact on society as a whole those policies will have, not only now but in the future..