Figure 1

Now that Mike had the proposal he had Bill Jones submit it to the state legislature. Right away the bill was sent to the Assembly Public Safety committee to be approved. This committee is known as a killer of tough-on-crime bills, and consisted of eight members, Paula Boland, Richard Rainey, Tom Umberg, Tom Bates, John Burton, Barbara Lee, and committee chairman Robert Epple. Both Boland and Rainey were Republicans while the rest were Democrats, and one vacant seat due to unknown reasons. This committee was moderate or even moderately conservative, but because Willie Brown had the power to choose members of the committee he chose those people whom he thought would sway the vote towards a liberal direction, which did not reflect the philosophy of the whole assembly. Mike also had asked Fresno Assemblyman Jim Costa (D) to be a co-author of their proposal, Mike wanted a bipartisan approach to the legislature. Meaning he wanted to have both major parties represented in the proposal.

The men had two Republican and two Democratic votes in their favor and only needed one more vote to pass, but unfortunately they did not get that one vote because Brown set up the committee and didn’t want a tough-on-crime bill. Berkeley Assemblyman John Burton gave Jones an option to re-write their proposal the way he sees fit, or have the proposal taken from the floor again and put to another vote. The problem with the latter was that if it failed again there would never be another next time.

On October 1993 a Petaluma 12 year old named Polly Klass was abducted from her home and subsequently slain by an ex-con named Richard Allen Davis. The aftermath of the Klass killing galvanized the public. Polly Klass’s funeral became a public happening with Governor Pete Wilson using the occasion to deliver a tough-on-crime campaign speech.

With the Klass killing still fresh on their minds, the two men pressed on. They even paid for publicity out of their own pockets. Eventually they did get corporate assistance from organizations like the NRA (National Rifle Association) and the CCPOA (California Correctional Peace Officers Association), as well as others. Their efforts would not be fruitless because they knew that if they could get enough signatures that the proposal would be put on the November, 1994 election ballot. The men had hundreds of thousands of signatures that lead to the induction of the proposal to the ballot as "Prop 184." The men made a few minor changes to the proposal but in the end it basically read as before. The men knew they had to keep it simple because they knew people would not vote for something they could not understand. Also sponsoring the proposal was millionaire Republican Michael Huffington who wanted to appear tough on crime because he was running for U.S. Senate.

There is a lot of talk about serious and violent felonies in the law and there are certain offenses that must be met in order to qualify as a serious or violent felony. The felonies that would fall under both categories would be those that are beyond misdemeanors and/or carry an extensive sentence.

With the passage of "Three strikes" some argued that it would ignite an increase in violence against law enforcement officers, putting them in danger as they tried to maintain public safety. The American Civil Liberties Union argued that criminals facing a life sentence if they were to be convicted would be far more likely to resist arrest, assault officers and kill witnesses. Since the enactment of the law violence against law enforcement officers has not risen but fallen. In the three years prior to the law assault against law enforcers dropped 14.9% while since the enactment it has dropped 11.9%, setting a downward trend.

Some studies have argued that the population of prisons and jails will rise substantially because of the increased prison sentences, limitations on the ability of repeat offenders to earn credits to reduce time, and prisoners required to be sentenced to prison rather than jails. Despite predictions to the contrary, the growth in the prison population since the enactment has slowed. In the four years prior to the law the prison population increased by 37%. Since the enactment the prison population has grown only 32%. That is near the percentage for the nation at 27% excluding California. While jail populations have increased during this era, the average number of persons booked over this period has dropped. The average number of people booked per month in county jails hit a record low in 1995 with 97,589. This is because 6% of criminals are responsible for 70% of all crime.

During the debate over the "Three Strikes law, opponents argued that the prison system would become overfilled with non-violent offenders serving life terms. Trying to prove this true a study conducted by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in 1996 concluded that 85% of the people sentenced under the "Three Strikes" law received their third strike for a non-violent crime. It reported that 192 individuals were convicted of marijuana possession while only 40 were convicted of murder, 25 of rape, and 24 of kidnapping. At the end of 1997, California’s inmate population totaled 152,577. 23.2% of the inmates (35,411), were imprisoned for second- and third-strike convictions.

There were repeated warnings about the cost to implement the new law, but few have addressed the other side of the equation and the savings to the state, in lives and in dollars. Had our 1993 crime rate continued unaffected over these past few years, nearly 815,000 additional crimes would have been committed in California, including 217,000+ violent crimes. We would have suffered more than 4,000 homicide victims; 6000+ women would have been victims of rape. Also the savings in dollars is between $5.8billion and $15.5 billion since the enactment of the "Three Strikes" law. Others ask where will the money come from? The money to finance three strikes will have to come from somewhere. The choices, however, are limited. Figure 3 shows the current allocation of expenditures from the state's general fund. Proposition 98 locked into the state constitution a minimum level of spending on K-12 education that is expected to increase dramatically in the coming years--from 36 percent of the general fund now to 47 percent in 2002. Health and welfare costs have been going up for a long time and show no signs of leveling off. The new three-strikes law will double the fraction of the general fund consumed by the Department of Corrections. Clearly, these increases will put enormous pressure on everything else the state spends money on (see Figure 4). That includes, most prominently, college education, but also a variety of other services ranging from controlling environmental pollution through managing parks and fightingbrush fires to regulating insurance and other industries.