The many forms of punishment for those who are convicted of crime in the United States vary, ranging from fines and probation to boot camps and chain gangs, to incarceration in jails an prisons, and finally to the death penalty. In 1998, the imprisonment rate in America was 668 per 100,000 offenders. This is six to twelve times higher than the rate of other Western countries. This astounding rate of incarceration is due to policies such as “three strikes and you’re out” and “zero-tolerance” for drug offenders. As incarceration rates have increased, so have other punitive measures. Mandatory minimum sentences are much more common as is the willingness to use isolation units. As of 1997, thirty-six states and the federal government have constructed “supermax” prisons. These facilities isolate prisoners considered most dangerous and confine them to small cells by themselves for 22 to 24 hours each day.

What Is This Law?
In 1994 California voters approved a ballot initiative known as “Three Strikes and You're Out.” Basically, it means that people who are convicted of three felonies may end up facing life in prison. For more information about Three Strikes, visit the FACTS (Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes)

Amend Three Strikes: Proposition 66
In 2004, the Los Angeles Times reports that “a decade after it was enacted, California's three-strikes sentencing law has had little impact on violent crime while costing taxpayers $8 billion to imprison tens of thousands of felons, most of them for nonviolent offenses.”
Proposition 66 was an effort to amend the Three Strikes law. It appeared on the ballot in the November 2, 2004, general election and was defeated by the voters. 

Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes is a coalition of organizations from the Los Angeles area with the intent of amending the three strikes law to apply to violent offenses only.

California Criminal Law Observer provides a complete analysis of the law and how it is applied. What is Three Strikes? Which Offenses Qualify? Juvenile, Serious, Violent.

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