After eight long years, California voters passed Proposition 36 on Tuesday Nov. 6th, which will revise the state’s notorious Three Strike Law. The law passed with a landslide: 68.6 percent of California voters voted in favor of the proposition.
The Three Strike Law, passed in 1994, allows judges to impose a life sentence on most offenders who commit minor crimes at their own discretion; thousands of inmates have been incarcerated for non-violent, relatively minor crimes ranging from the most benign, such as stealing a credit card, to marijuana possession to non-violent burglaries. One of the more noted cases was a man sentenced to life after stealing a pair of socks, given that it was his third criminal offence.
Proposition 36, which has been trialed to pass for years, seeks to eliminate life sentences imposed for such crimes, as well as save up to $100 million per year spent on these incarcerations (Sankin). It also includes a provision that could grant an early release or shorter resentencing for up to 3000 current inmates in California state prisons.
What this revision ultimately provides is another opportunity at life for many of the inmates who, for their past minor crimes from even decades ago, have had to let go of the possibility of ever coming home again. For the relatives and loved ones of those still awaiting their time to return back to their old lives, news of the proposition’s passing brings them newfound hope.
According to Tracy Kaplan from Mercury News, Alberta Manzanares, the sister of an inmate who has been serving a life sentence for the past 17 years for stealing a credit card, said that upon hearing the news of the passed law she “was crying because he might actually be coming home”. Manzanares’ brother had been previously charged with two non-violent burglaries before his third arrest.
Proposition 36 undoubtedly represents a new paradigm shift in the way the state ought to handle the criminal justice system. According to Adam Gelb, director of the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project, “[this] vote on Proposition 36 sends a powerful message to policymakers in California and across the country that taxpayers are ready for a new direction in criminal justice” (Kaplan).
For these 3000 hopeful inmates and their families, the right to freedom and a fair sentencing has been a long and arduous battle against California state courts. But after eight long years the tide of change in California’s justice system has alas arrived.
