California Rolls Back Three Strikes—Will Others Follow?

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/article/171150/california-rolls-back-three-strikes-will-others-follow



As a filmmaker committed to addressing the injustices of the War on Drugs and its devastating impact on American communities, I awoke on November 7 to a renewed sense of purpose. Beyond working to support the movement for marijuana reform in Colorado, Massachusetts and Washington, I had traveled to California in the week leading up to election day to work for the passage of Proposition 36, a vital piece of legislation that reduces the severity of California’s notorious “three strikes” law. By voting to amend that law so that offenders with two nonviolent “strikes” against them cannot henceforth receive a life sentence for a third strike that is petty or nonviolent, Californians have sent a resounding signal to the rest of the country: it is possible to retreat from the tragic excesses of America’s criminal justice nightmare. The same state that helped lead the way into the darkness of excessive sentencing for nonviolent crimes has begun, it would seem, to lead us back toward the light. And because every state has its own special brand of excess when it comes to the treatment of nonviolent offenders, as goes California, so I hope can go the nation.

In my new film, The House I Live In, I try to understand how this country became a land without pity in our treatment of drug crime. We are the world’s leading jailer, with more of our citizens behind bars than any other country on earth. The statistics speak volumes. Over forty years, the War on Drugs has cost a trillion dollars and accounted for 45 million drug arrests. Yet for all that, America has nothing to show but a legacy of total failure. Drugs are cheaper, purer, more available and in use by younger people today than ever before. Perhaps this explains why any mention of the issue was notably absent from this year’s presidential election. Ever since Nixon first declared the War on Drugs in 1971 and proved the electoral power of anti-crime rhetoric, politicians of both parties have known, as sure as they know where their bread is buttered, that talking tough on crime is smart politics. But what happens when people begin to acknowledge that the war is a total failure? What if politicians are starting to realize that associating themselves with a loser is just plain bad politics?

[obamanut2012]

1. Three Strikes was nothing but a money-maker

And, friends in CA have told me that's who lobbied for it: prison builders and vendors, and Corrections PACs.

The jails and prisons there are so stuffed full of non-violent drug users and petty criminals, that violent offenders and scofflaws (parole and probation violations, etc.) get nothing or, literally, a few hours in jail.

GOOD!

[Le Taz Hot]

2. Looks like I missed the film

but the trailer is fascinating. I'll look for it on RedBox or Netflix.