Three Strikes 15 Years Later: We’re All Out -- of Money, and Time

By Tamar Todd, AlterNet. Posted March 17, 2009.

People are serving 25 years to life in California for drug possession, for stealing a pizza, and in one especially sad case, chocolate chip cookies.

This month the California Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Richard Allen Davis, who kidnapped and murdered a young girl named Polly Klaas over 15 years ago. The murder of Polly Klaas led to a wave of fear among Californians. That fear quickly turned to outrage and that outrage quickly led to the most heavy-handed, over-reaching, costly, and ineffective sentencing policy in California history. This policy has cost the state billions of dollars to incarcerate thousands of people convicted of nonviolent offenses for extraordinarily long periods. This month is the 15th anniversary of California's Three Strikes law.

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