“Three Strikes and You’re Out” 15 Year Report shows an average of 1,000,000 serious or violent crimes are prevented every 5 years and 10,000 Californians spared from becoming murder victims since its passage in 1994. One amazing fact is that although California’s population has gone up by 14,000,000 residents since its passage crime has not gone up proportionately. A remarkable statistic. We’ve made a distributable PDF version available. Mike Reynolds has written some remarks to introduce this study.
Solving Problems
Solving problems is the single thing that separates humans from other species of animals. It is driven by an underlying desire to make our lives easier and better.
Inventions and discoveries from the wheel and electricity, from medicine to the modern cellphone and Internet. All were meant to make our lives easier and better.
When confronting a problem, we can make 3 different decisions. The right one, the wrong one and no decision at all. Sometimes what is thought to be the right decision turns out to be wrong.
Parting Thoughts on the Year 2020
Much has happened in the year 2020. I predict our grandchildren will be telling their grandchildren about this year, perhaps, like no other in history.
The impact of a worldwide pandemic is beyond comparison and is yet to be seen in hindsight.
Listen to Mike Reynolds visit with Mark Kapetan on his Saturday KMJ Show, Brothers in Law.
Kapetan, Reynolds interview, part 1
Kapetan, Reynolds interview, part 2
Kapetan, Reynolds interview, part 3
Kapetan, Reynolds interview, part 4
The Today Show with Katie Couric, 1994 as she hosted first Joe Biden and then includes Mike Reynolds into the discussion. Katie shows the piece of Bill Clinton likewise endorsing the 3 Strike concept.
“The Increasing Dangers Inside California Prisons,” from CCPOA’s Sept 2018 issue Peace Keepers Magazine, is an inside look from the Corrections Officer’s vantage point of how state leadership is allowing the criminality of prison gang culture to flourish in a way that we haven’t seen in decades.
This year we at 3 Strikes appreciated and used a number of articles from the California District Attorneys Association. If anyone can match the incredulity of 3 Strikes it is Michele Hanisee and her associates. They see crime going unpunished and victims suffering up front and personal, this article by Michele being typical. It details how time after time Jerry Brown and Sacramento politicians were warned of the results of letting dangerous repeat felons out of our state prisons to practice their criminal therapy on you, the hapless Californian.
To say that Jerry Brown’s legacy to California will be an explosion of lawlessness, homelessness and crime increases in every category is an understatement. It was during Jerry’s first term as Governor of California from 1975 through 1983, that the phrase “soft on crime” was made a household term. Jerry has personified it during his current administration.
The following story, written by Dan Walters at CALMatters, is representative of the above statements.
Softer crime laws will loom large in Brown’s legacy
The California District Attorneys Association headed by Michelle Hanisee has been extremely critical of Brown’s efforts to undo California effort to discourage crime with certain punishment and the CDC’s previous mission to incapacitate repeat felons by keeping them behind bars, out of the public they victimize.
A recent article by Eric Siddall, The “No consequences for crime” bill, is representative of their publishing ALL YEAR LONG.
Don Thompson, of the Associated Press, is something of a historian of sorts on 3 Strikes, also posted an article Sept. 9, 2018, acknowledging the nationwide observation of Brown’s mismanagement of public safety, making California a laughingstock.
The responsible adults of the crime and punishment debate are truly afraid of California setting an example to be taken up by other states and the federal government. And for good reason. Quoting Thompson, “California lawmakers are continuing a years-long movement to lower criminal sentences, ease restrictions on suspects, and keep juveniles out of adult prisons despite objections that the moves could harm public safety.”
Accurate crime numbers are impossible to come up with due the Secretary of State being in the hands of Democrat Xavier Becerra. With the state’s apologists, whose so-called experts can never seem to discover just why crime dropped 50% just a few years after the passage of Three Strikes and You’re Out, being unabashedly on the side Brown’s efforts and belittling the claims of the state’s police chiefs’ claim of rising crime. Such is life in California.
A new study appeared from the Harvard Kennedy School Program in Criminal Justice Policy July 2018 suggesting new, scientific ways of dealing with criminals and crime. Despite its high brow language and well educated authors, Mike Reynolds replied, “Criminal conduct must be confronted and stopped. Not to do so only increases the frequency and severity of crime. Historically, the best way to get results is to get tough. No more “Mr. Nice Guy.”
Today in California it’s never been tougher to send a criminal to prison, and criminals know that. California’s crime rates historically dropped in half after the passage of 3 Strikes in 1994. Now we see California crime laws being systematically overturned one after another and California crime is on the rise.
Man who inspired three strikes law sentenced to life in prison for most recent act of violence
Douglas Walker received the sentence of 44 years to life for numerous felonies. See our dedicated page for the stories written about Walker’s final sentence.
FBI REPORT: CRIME CONTINUES TO INCREASE IN CALIFORNIA CITIES
The FBI Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report for 2017, which tracks crimes committed during the first six months of the past year in U. S. cities with populations over 100,000, indicates that last year violent crime increased again in most of California’s largest cities.
Commentary: Brown’s parole measure hits big legal snag
By Dan Walters | Feb 15, 2018
When Gov. Jerry Brown was promoting Proposition 57 to voters in 2016, he characterized it as a common sense criminal law reform that would give nonviolent felons a better chance at rehabilitation by allowing them to earn earlier releases on parole.
However, it did not specify which felonies would be deemed nonviolent. Rather, Brown’s campaign confirmed that it would be every felony not included on a specific Penal Code list of 23 violent crimes – and that lack of specificity is now backfiring.
El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, a Doctor of Psychology appeared on Tucker Carlson who reported that the homeless problem is a development of felons being released en masse from California State Prisons.
Dr. Wells explained his own personnel experiences with the homeless as Mayor of El Cajon and in his practice as an ER physician. Tucker was incredulous as to why California would allow the homeless to impact the quality of life of the law-abiding with their presence in their neighborhoods. The Mayor further explained that those who provide social programs don’t want to lose the funding they receive to treat these people.
In reality Jerry Brown has put these people on the streets where they scrounge for recyclables, commit crime to support their addictions and relieve themselves on public streets. An outbreak of Hepatitis A has been a consequence – 18 have died – of their presence and behavior, giving California residents yet another reason to leave the state. This is trading the expense supposed to have been saved by their release from prison to providing for their care while on the streets committing crime, dramatically decreasing the quality of life of all taxpayers.
In essence Jerry Brown has created a new class of recipients of public funding through the programs designed to supposedly help them. Look for more taxpayer dollars to be demanded to be directed toward their further care to cure a problem for which Governor Brown is personally responsible.
Thank Dan Walters for recognizing the crime increases in the wake of Props 47, 57 and AB109/Realignment. He further pointed out California prison population at the end of Jerry Brown’s first term as Governor was only 20,000 and that
after the passage of 3 Strikes it went to 160,000. This is not quite right.
3 Strikes passed in 1994 at the time California prison populations were 135,000 and increasing at an approximate rate of 10% per year. The California Legislative Analyst, in concert with the Department of Corrections, estimated prison populations would reach 250,000 within 5 years after the passage of 3 Strikes.
This, in fact, did not happen. Also not mentioned the 19 new prisons that were authorized to be built and staffed came long before 3 Strikes. After 3 Strikes’ passage only one new prison has been built – Delano 2, and this was 20 years ago.
Mike Reynolds
Stanford’s Mike Romano and his fellow law school professors made Prop. 36, “The 3 Strikes Reform Initiative,” their project. This was the first major blow to 3 Strikes and was soon followed by Prop. 47 and most recently Prop. 57.
The California Supreme Court has had a long history of protecting the power of California judges, so this “win” for 3 Strikes was rather small when compared with the overall impact of the more recent changes that have downgraded and diminished California crime laws and consequently public safety.
It may explain Romano’s Stanford press release stating that the 3 Strikers that have been released under Prop. 36 have a lower than average rate of re-offending. In reality they aren’t letting the really bad ones out and the California Supreme Court has ruled that our judges have the right to decide.
Mike Reynolds
Fabio appears on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. During Tucker’s interview with Fabio, it became apparent Fabio was frustrated with his life in California. It seems even in his exclusive neighborhood, some 14 of his Hollywood friends had been burglarized. Fabio goes on to recount how all was well when 3 Strikes was in full operation, not handcuffed by AB109/Prop. 36/ Prop. 47 and Prop. 57. We also commiserate with Fabio, we miss the peace and safety we all knew for 20 years until irresponsible politicians decided to take down the most effective crime law in America. Note that it took 4 different pieces of legislation and initiatives to ruin 3 Strikes. One has to ask why? Why force near anarchy on the residents of California by releasing the worst of the worst offenders back on to the streets to practice their criminal therapy? If someone releases a dangerous animal into the public and it injures someone, who is responsible, the animal or the person who let the animal out?
It’s about time someone exposed the truth about where our tax dollars are really going. I’ve often been confronted with carefully crafted statements like “in the last 30 years California has built 20 new prisons and only one new college.”
What was not said is “it’s been 20 years since California has built a new prison.”
New data released yesterday by the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Supplemental BJS data on recidivism for inmates released from prison in 2005 shows that 28.5% of property offenders, such as burglars and car thieves, were rearrested for a violent crime within five years. This figure is only slightly lower than the 33.1% of violent offenders released the same year who were rearrested for violent crimes within five years.
Tough on crime law have saved lives; don’t turn back
by Pete Wilson
Special to The Bee
OCTOBER 2, 2016
A crucial decision confronts voters deciding Proposition 57 of the Nov. 8 ballot. What is of greater value: money the state might save from prematurely releasing several thousand felons from prison in the questionable hope that they will prove to be nonviolent. Or is it not far more important to prevent the probable and far greater human cost of the criminal violence and suffering and deaths that will result from their release?
California sees sharp increase in crime, fueling political debate. By Dan Walters.
Orinda, an affluent, bucolic Contra Costa County town, would seem to be an unlikely scene for a vicious street crime.
However, one day last week, two armed robbers wearing Halloween masks confronted a couple, both 70 years old, as they unloaded groceries in their driveway. They battered the man, even though he surrendered his wallet, and shot his wife twice before fleeing.
It will be recorded as one of the approximately 170,000 violent crimes committed in California this year – and after several decades of decline, armed robberies, rapes, homicides and other violent crimes are on the upswing.
California moves to soften criminal penalties. Breaking news, insight on the Valley’s political movers and shakers.
The further “dumbing down” of our crime laws is exactly what we “don’t” need in the middle of the crime wave that is gripping California.
Realignment and Prop 47 was also said to save millions of dollars but instead has increased corrections costs by billions of dollars.
This is a policy that encourages repeat offenders, raises crime rates and increases the cost to police and local law enforcement who try to stop crimes that no longer carry penalties.
Mike Reynolds
Retired Appeals Court Justice James Ardaiz contributed remarks in our local Fresno Bee’s August 31 issue of Valley Voices to the upcoming issue surrounding Prop 57 on this November’s ballot. Justice Ardaiz spells out that though California is already suffering a crime wave due previous “soft on crime” efforts by Governor Brown, surprisingly Brown seeks to release yet another 10,000 of California’s worst of the worst felony offenders.
California Crime Measure Triggers 52,000 Fewer Arrests
Law enforcement officials said drug offenders may now commonly be cited and released, or ignored because there may be little penalty if they are arrested. There were about 22,000 fewer drug arrests last year.
Multiple courts reported an increase in failures to appear for misdemeanor arraignments since Proposition 47 passed, the Judicial Council of California found in a survey of 40 of the state’s 58 county superior courts.
“If people aren’t showing up in court, if they’re not going to go to drug court, we’re going to see what we’re seeing, which is increased crime rates in our communities,” said Ventura Police Chief Ken Corney, president of the California Police Chiefs Association. Continue reading …
REPORTS SHOW CRIME INCREASING ACROSS CALIFORNIA The CJLF found a new source for “reliable” crime rate data, The California Police Chiefs Association. Their report, “Report Shows Crime Increasing Across California,” showed double digit increases in 2015 of violent crime (15.41%) and property crime (15.25%) likely related to Jerry Brown’s super generous release of felons under AB109/Realignment and Proposition 47 which made over 400 felony crimes into misdemeanors.
Also the FBI showed similar results with their 2015 Preliminary Uniform Crime Report with California showing a 12.9% increase in violent crime and a 9.2% increase in property crime from January through June 2015.
Dan Walters: Jerry Brown’s bill helps his crime initiative quest Coincident? Not likely, but an end run around the system by a master politician. The grievous aspect is that Governor Brown used taxpayer dollars and our system against their better interests to release yet more criminals. Walters calls this “smarmy.” That is something of an understatement.
The Stanford School of Law’s Progress Report on their Proposition 36 initiative came into our hands recently and is available here for reading. Mike Reynolds had some remarks about details you may have not considered; you may read them here.
State, judges should rethink early release of some felons. We are seeing the vast majority of these early-release 3 Strikers back in custody on new charges for new crimes within a very short time. Just how much does the state save when you figure in the cost of a new trial complete with a new defense and prosecution lawyers with no account for the impact to the victims of these repeat offenders?
We are often asked, “How did 3 Strikes get started? What was its origin?” The story is best told in a segment from ABC’s 20 20 TV show with Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs. It was first aired January 19, 1994.