Politicians and Law Enforcement Have Trapped Too Many People in Jail for Life

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http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/taibbi-politicians-and-law-enforcement-have-trapped-too-many-people-jail-life

Taibbi: Politicians and Law Enforcement Have Trapped Too Many People in Jail for Life with Extreme Three Strikes Laws


California’s colossal calamity known as the Three Strikes sentencing law was made less strident by voters last fall. But according to a profile by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, the wreckage from 16 years of putting people away for life continues to extract an absurd toll in which thousands of petty criminals and mentally ill people are jailed for no good reason.

California passed its law after the brutal kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old girl in a small northern California town in 1993. But as Taibbi chronicles, a parade of Democratic and Republican politicians, law enforcement officials and get-tough-on-crime activists has created a Pandora’s box that’s trapped more low-rent offenders than anyone else, ruining lives and costing taxpayers multiple millions.

The law imposing life for anyone convicted of a third felony took effect on March 8, 1994. Nine hours later it found its first victim, Taibbi notes, “a homeless schizophrenic named Lester Wallace, with two nonviolent burglaries on his sheet, who attempted to steal a car radio near the University of Southern California campus.”

“Wallace was such an incompetent thief that he was still sitting in the passenger seat of the car by the time police arrived. He went to court and got 25 years to life. In prison, Wallace immediately became a target. He was sexually and physically attacked numerous times – there’s an incident in his file involving an inmate who told him, ‘Motherfucker, I'll kill you if you don't let me go up in you.’ He was switched to protective custody, and over the years he has suffered from seizures and developed severe back problems (forcing him to walk with a cane) and end-stage renal disease (leading to dialysis treatments three times a week). And even months after California voters chose to reform the law, the state still won’t agree to release him. ‘He's a guy who’s literally dying,’ says Michael Romano, director of Stanford’s Three Strikes program and a key figure in the effort to reform the law, ‘and he’s still inside.’”