4 ms·
Sure, but who convinced 71% of Californians that this approach was a good idea?
by jonah 11y ago
Sure, but who convinced 71% of Californians that this approach was a good idea?
- tsotha 11y agoNobody needed to convince Californians. The early 90s were the era of the crack wars, where it seemed like every other day you'd read about some kid taking a stray bullet because a drug dealer was trying to take out a rival by spraying his house with gunfire.
- rayiner 11y agoWho did convince them? In 1994, the for-profit prison industry was tiny. CCR cleared just a few million in profits each year: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/05/business/corrections-corp-of-america-nms-reports-earnings-for-qtr-to-march-31.html http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/05/business/corrections-corp-.... In 1994, the industry was tiny, and California voted-in a draconian three strikes law by a 71% margin. In 2012, the industry was booming, with CCA clearing hundreds of millions a year in revenue, and Californians vote to pare back their three law with a similar 69% margin. To me, your implied conclusion is totally divorced from reality. Rather, the obvious conclusion is that Californians circa 2012 simply came from a less heartless and bloodthirsty generation than Californians circa 1994.
- x0x0 11y agoI'm not a sociologist nor a criminologist, but I do drink with them. There are a lot of factors: 1 - there really was (an almost certainly environmental lead-triggered) crime wave that is finally mostly over. Also mix in crack and other drugs. 2 - there was the advent of 24x7 tv news, and when you need something to fill that air time, scary black man randomly killing white people suits perfectly. Even though that is a tiny minority of murders. 3 - people don't understand type 1 and type 2 error: every time a person is set free, some tiny fraction will recidivate (baring incarceration until death.) Mix this in with #2, and you see how sentences increase monotonously. 4 - republicans discover racism motivates voters. See, eg, the Willie Horton commercials [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton
- refurb 11y agoWow! Calling out the fact a convicted felon shouldn't have been let out to murder again is racism?
- x0x0 11y agoThanks for perfectly demonstrating #3! And yes, the Willie Horton commercials as run by Lee Atwater were indeed racist. Lee Atwater's famous quote is You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Guess who was running George HW Bush' campaign? Republicans picked up the Horton issue after Dukakis clinched the nomination. In June 1988, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush seized on the Horton case, bringing it up repeatedly in campaign speeches. Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, said "By the time we're finished, they're going to wonder whether Willie Horton is Dukakis' running mate." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton
- vellum 11y agoIt was the Polly Klaas murder that boosted support for Three Strikes. In '93, a felon named Richard Allan Davis interrupted a slumber party and kidnapped/killed a 13 year old. After that, her father led the campaign for Three Strikes. > In the wake of the murder, politicians in California and other U.S. states supported three strikes laws, and California's Three Strikes act was signed into law on March 8, 1994.[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Polly_Klaas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Polly_Klaas