Revisiting Three-Strikes Laws

by Matt Kelley · 2009-08-11 16:14:00 UTC
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The pendulum is swinging on mass incarceration, and the notorious and ineffective three-strikes laws could fall across the country in the months and years ahead. States are broke, and they're looking at their corrections budgets (see the absurd spending numbers in yesterday's post) and realizing that locking people up for life for smoking crack might not have been the best idea.

Prosecutors in Washington State are bringing clemency petitions for people who served a decade or more under three-strikes laws and have never committed a violent crime. At least 100 people were sentenced to life without parole in the 1990s in Washington for three nonviolent crimes.

The L.A. Times reports today on the unusual steps being taken by Washington prosecutors, and highlights the case of Stevan Dozier (above), who was the first non-violent lifer in the nation granted clemency when he was freed in May.Today, Dozier is married and works at a Seattle nonprofit.

Twenty-four states still have three-strikes laws, despite a move toward judicial discretion over the last decade. These laws are applied more cautiously now than they were during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, but they need to be fully erased to guarantee that defendants are sentenced based on their crime and not outdated legislation.

Earlier this year, Washington three-strikes lifer Al-Kareem Shadeed wrote on Washblog about his life sentence for three street robberies, all without weapons.

Hopefully, one day I can be a contributor to society and make a difference in someone's life.  Hopefully, someday I wall be able to see my mother and bothers and sisters again and hold them in my arms.  My life s salvageable!  I can make a difference.  People always speak of accountability.  Well, hold me accountable.  I can and will be a productive contributor to society, and no longer will such unlawful behavior be magnified and reflected by me again.  You can trust in that!

The state's board of pardons and parole has recommended freeing Shadeed.

Via Prisonmovement.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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