Nowhere is this more evident than in California where the 0.J. Simpsons walk while the poor from South Central linger in prisons.
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"Pubic outrage at the gruesome murders of Kimber Reynolds in Fresno in 1992 and Polly Klaas in Petaluna in 1993, each by released felons with long rap sheets, fueled passage of California's' three-strikes and you're out' law in 1994- (TIMES 1). The image of California has been tarnished, according to James Rawls, in California: A Place, A People, A Dream, he describes California as a land, "no longer seen as a land of health but as a dark precinct of social pathology. Wide publicity is given to the states rate of alchohalism, drug abuse, and suicide "clear evidence that California is now the land of failed dreams and broken promises- ( Rawls 12). Many feel the only way to curb ones activity is to insist by the three strikes law.
However, the fact that this law, and others which followed up on specifying how the three strikes mandated sentences would be prosecuted, are now under review as possibly being unconstitutional (along with Proposition 21, which is also under going a similar Constitutional challenge), has not stopped prosecutors from "throwing the book- at three-strikes defendants.
California has been debating this three-strikes law, and while those who believe that it hurts the petty criminal the most are opposed by those who cite that there are violent offenders who have been put away and out of danger to the general public It therefore necessary to look at both sides, before making a final judgment.
"1n news stories, opponents often misrepresent how three-strikes is being enforced and its effect on crime."" (Westerman 1) The author writes that opponents of the law claim that the majority of criminal sentenced under this law have been convicted on nonviolent crimes, like marijuana possession or petty theft. The facts, according to Westerman, are that in order to receive a three-strikes sentence, a criminal must be convicted of a second violent or serious felony.
