Cruel justice : three strikes and the politics of crime in America's golden state
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Bibliographic Information
Cruel justice : three strikes and the politics of crime in America's golden state
University of California Press, c2004
- : [pbk.]
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Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
When the people of California overwhelmingly voted for the 1994 'three strikes' law, many had no idea what they were approving. The official ballot argument in favor of what "Newsweek" called 'the toughest law in the nation' kept it simple: 'Three strikes keeps career criminals who rape women, molest children and commit murder behind bars where they belong'. What few people realized, however, was that the sweeping nature of the law would put thousands of nonviolent men and women in prison for twenty-five years to life, for crimes as minor as shoplifting $2.69 worth of AA batteries, forging a check for $94.94, or attempting to buy a macadamia nut disguised as a $5 rock of cocaine. In his riveting, well-documented book, Joe Domanick reveals the drama of the shattered lives involved with the law. Focusing on personal stories, "Cruel Justice" expands to tell the larger tale of how the law came into existence; how it has played out; what political, social, and economic forces lie behind it; and how the politics of crime and fear work in America.
Domanick demonstrates how laws passed in haste, without deliberation, and in reaction to public hysteria can have unforeseen consequences as tragic as those they were designed to thwart. Domanick draws powerful portraits of the two innocent young girls - Kimber Reynolds and Polly Klaas - whose murders were the catalyst for the three strikes law; of the men who killed them; of the fathers who sought their revenge; and especially of the many people serving lengthy prison terms who are victims of the three strikes law itself.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Prologue Part One. Senseless Acts 1. Kimber Reynolds: Outside the Daily Planet 2. The Natural: Mike Reynolds Finds a Vocation 3. Justice Seldom Seen in America 4. Mike Reynolds's World Part Two. The Steamroller 5. Mike Reynolds's Law 6. A Menace to Society 7. Child of the '50s 8. Roots of the Backlash 9. Talk Radio: The New Yellow Press 10. Tough Love: Sue Reams and Her Boy 11."Weird Ducks and Blind Fools" Part Three. The Poster Child and Willie Horton 12. Right Out of Her Own Bedroom 13. Another Piercing Scream 14. "Guns Don't Kill People" 15. The Prince of "J" Street: Don Novey Comes on Board 16. Polly Klaas: America's Child 17. Happily Shaking Fate's Sorry Hand 18. Checking the Weather Vane Part Four. Rocks the Size of Peas: Three Strikes in Operation 19. The "Lookout" Gets Life 20. Say Hello to Hitler, Dahmer, and Bundy 21. Pizza Face 22. Another Reynolds Bill: "Ten, Twenty, Life" 23. Jean Valjean Redux Part Five. The Counterrevolution (Sort Of) 24. The More Committed Executioner 25. Lenny, Drug Court, and Three Strikes 26. The Modification 27. The Trip to Pleasant Valley 28. A "Taliban-Type" Law Epilogue Notes Selected Sources Index
by "Nielsen BookData"