Socialist Action /June 1999
Three Strikes: The Legacy of Opportunism
Filmmaker Michael J. Moore Documents the Hype Promoted
by Politicians and the Media in Producing California's Notorious "Anti-Crime"
Law
By MICHAEL SCHREIBER
"The Legacy: Murder and Media, Politics and Prison." A film
by Michael J. Moore. To be broadcast on the Public Broadcasting System beginning
June 1.
Modern readers of the novel "Moll Flanders" are properly horrified
when the heroine is condemned to the gallows for merely stealing a bolt
of cloth. But "Moll Flanders" was written over 200 years ago;
things are different now, aren't they?
Nowadays, doesn't law enforcement adhere to the dictum that "the
punishment should fit the crime?"
Not in California! In that state, shop-lifting a bolt of cloth-or a loaf
of bread, for that matter-can land a person in prison for the rest of his
or her life.
Back in 1993, proponents of the "Three Strikes and You're Out"
law (Proposition 184 on the California ballot) promised voters that it would
keep violent criminals off the street.
The language of the proposed law seemed simple: A convicted felon would
receive triple the time of a normal sentence for his or her second crime
and a mandatory 25 years to life for the third crime.
But today, 80 percent of the prisoners who are now serving maximum sentences
under Three Strikes have been charged with non-violent, and relatively minor,
crimes. Merely being caught with an ounce of marijuana can send a defendant
to prison for life.
A year ago, 20 percent of the 160,000 prisoners in California's prison
system had been locked up under the Three Strikes law. As of March 1998,
that percentage rose to an incredible 28 percent!
Some 20 new facilities are under construction in the state to handle
the mushrooming population of prisoners.
"The rise in the prison population," San Francisco filmmaker
Michael J. Moore stresses, "has nothing to do with the the rate of
crime; it has to do with the length of sentencing."
Moore's film, "The Legacy," starts off with footage of two
headline-grabbing tragedies: In 1992, 18-year-old Kimber Reynolds was shot
and killed by a mugger in Fresno, Calif. A year later, 12-year-old Polly
Klaas was kidnapped from her Petaluma, Calif., home and murdered.
Both crimes were carried out by people who had already spent time in
prison. Kimber's father, Mike Reynolds, began to push for a new law to get
such "repeat offenders" off the streets.
Reynolds began a campaign to get a ballot measure (Proposition 184) passed,
which would authorize the California legislature to enact the Three Strikes
Law.
At first, the campaign was a dud. No elected politician-from Gov. Wilson
on down-wanted to become identified with such a drastic measure. However,
soon after the Polly Klaas murder came to light, Reynolds was able to enlist
Polly's father, Marc, in his ballot crusade.
"The Legacy" documents how the Prop. 184 campaign was catapulted
into the headlines, fueled by the media frenzy around the Polly Klaas affair.
That same year, according to the Center for Media and Public affairs,
coverage of murders tripled on national TV network news. This helped to
instill new fears among the public in regard to murders and violence.
One by one, Democratic and Republican politicians in California began
to sense which way the wind was blowing; they quickly reversed their previous
positions and rushed in to endorse Prop. 184.
"The Legacy" features interviews with knuckleheads like California
assembly member Bill Jones, one of the authors of Prop. 184, who milked
the growing anti-crime hysteria to get himself elected secretary of state.
Funds for the Prop. 184 campaign poured in from groups like the National
Rifle Association and the Prison Guards Association. In 150 days, Prop.
184 gathered 400,000 signatures, to become the fastest qualifying ballot
measure in state history. At election time, 72 percent voted their approval.
Just a month before the election, however, Marc Klaas-as well as his
father, Joe, who had also been a spokesperson for the Prop. 184 campaign-retracted
their support. The Klaas family, on a closer reading of the initiative,
realized that Three Strikes would fill the prisons with pot-smokers and
petty thieves instead of the violent criminals who were its purported target.
Yet once Marc Klaas began to speak out against Three Strikes, the big-business
media virtually ignored him. Gov. Wilson even chastised Polly's father by
saying, "You don't realize how the victims feel!"
Now, however, some Three Strikes cases have begun to find their way into
the major media. (For example, the May 26 San Francisco Examiner has an
article about a man who was given a life sentence for stealing two pairs
of shoes from a college frat house.)
At the same time, some politicians are starting to squirm as taxpayers
raise questions about Three Strikes and the millions of dollars lavished
on new prison construction. One Democratic Party assemblyman, John Vasconcellos,
is proposing a one-year "advisory commission" to study the costs
and benefits of the law.
But Michael Moore points out that proposals of this sort are merely designed
to "provide political cover" to allow legislators to "vote
their conscience while still supporting Three Strikes."
The entire prison and court system must be dismantled. The struggle to
achieve this can only come from the masses of people who feel cheated by
the system and are enraged when their neighbors and sons and daughters disappear
into a prison cell for the rest of their lives.
People like this will be viewing "The Legacy" on television
this month. "This is not a film you watch and you leave the theater
or house and it's over," Moore told a reporter for the San Francisco
Bay Guardian. "Rather, it's a tool to activate people."
Socialist Action /June 1999 |