Proposition 66 Supporters Launch Campaign to Fix "Three Strikes"

Joe Klaas Joins Labor, Civic and Religious Groups Supporting Prop 66
For Immediate Release: September 30, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO – A broad coalition of Bay Area civic and religious groups, labor organizations, and public officials are launching a campaign in support of Proposition 66, an initiative that fixes a major flaw in California’s Three Strikes law: giving 25-to-life sentences for non-violent, petty crimes. Bay Area organizations and individuals endorsing Prop 66 include Joe Klaas, grandfather of Polly Klaas, whose 1994 kidnapping and murder generated rapid voter approval of the Three Strikes law, the San Francisco Black Police Officers Association, and retired Superior Court Judge and Vice Provost at Sanford University, LaDoris Cordell.

“It’s un-American to keep locking people up for the rest of their lives for shoplifting, writing bad checks, and making false statements on loan applications,” Klaas said. “Let's reserve life sentences for child molesters and rapists and put the money saved towards fixing schools and hiring more police officers.”
According to a San Francisco Chronicle editorial endorsing Prop 66, under the Three Strikes law: “A majority –57 percent – are serving life sentences for nonviolent crimes, including 357 for petty theft, 235 for vehicle theft, 69 for forgery, and 678 for drug possession.”

Proposition 66 would reform California’s Three Strikes sentencing law to require that a third strike – carrying a mandatory 25-years-to-life sentence – be a violent or serious felony. Proposition 66 would allow a resentencing trial for 4,100 inmates serving non-violent third strikes and would limit the list of crimes that currently count as “strikes” to violent felonies. The initiative has the potential of saving millions of dollars for the state. The Justice Policy Institute estimates that prisoners added to the California prison system under the Three Strikes law, between March 1994 and September 2003, cost taxpayers an additional $6 billion in prison and jail expenditures.

“The current Three Strikes law is unfair,” said Judge Cordell. “The law forces judges to hand non-violent offenders life sentences that are woefully disproportionate to the crimes they have committed. A vote for Proposition 66 is a vote for fairness and justice.”

Member organizations of the Bay Area campaign join a statewide network of endorsers including Children’s Defense Fund California, the California Democratic Party, California Labor Federation (AFL-CIO), California Conference of Bishops, and California National Organization for Women. Editorial boards at the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, and North County Times are among those in support of Proposition 66.

“Prop 66 restores Three Strikes to voters’ original intent,” said Maya Harris, Director of the ACLU of Northern California Racial Justice Project. “Voters passed the Three Strikes to lock up repeat, violent offenders, not to spend $8 billion over the last decade to give life sentences to petty thieves.”