Putting a Face on Three-Strikes Injustice

The CA. three-strikes law was enacted in 1994, after the kidnapping and murder of Polly Klaas in Petaluma. Citizens, even those in low-crime areas, have felt strangely comforted, oddly unbothered, by the fact that huge numbers of men are being locked away for life, many of them for relatively minor offenses. There are many disturbing statistics regarding the U.S. prison population, but this is my favorite: With just 5% of the world's population, the U.S. incarcerates an estimated one of every four prisoners in the world. California has been in the vanguard of harsh, mandatory sentencing, and its three-strikes law is the emblem of such policies. It is certainly not coincidental to the nation's large prison population that so many of the inmates are like Carl Jones: black or Latino men from the inner city, largely faceless to suburban, middle-class voters. [more ]