DISPARITIES IN SENTENCING IN CALIFORNIA
This research paper compares and contrast the criminal sentencing process in California, as it applies to persons who are convicted of violent crimes and white collar or economic crimes and others potentially subject to long prison terms under the 1994 Three Strikes law.
In response to rising crime rates and public fears, California criminal sentencing laws and practices have been much more severely and more rigidly applied to violent offenders. In the past decade, white collar criminals also have received stiffer sentences, but the courts still exercise considerable discretion in deciding their fate and rarely impose on them the maximum prison terms permitted by law. Since the passage of the Three Strikes law in 1994, persons who have committed in the past violent and other serious felonies and then commit an additional felony, whether or not the recent felony is violent or serious, face draconian sentences. The rigid application of the Three Strikes law has been somewhat tempered by prosecutorial and judicial discretion, but the courts, the jails and state prisons can potentially be overloaded at considerable cost to taxpayers because of the overreaching nature of the Three Strikes law. The rate of violent crime in California has sharply declined recently, but it is unclear whether this has occurred because or in spite of the Three Strikes law.
1. Even before the adoption of the Three Strikes law in 1994, California's sentencing laws and practices with respect to violent and other serious offenders became much harsher as a result of higher crime rates and public perceptions that existing crime control enforcement was inadequate.
(a) Rising rates of violent crime. According to statistics reported by the United States Department of Justice, the rate of violent crime per 100,000 of population increased by 355 percent between 1960 and 1990. California mirrored this national tre...