May 13th, 2011 by Celeste Fremon
Last week two dozen California reporters—myself included—met with state and local officials and criminal justice experts on the USC campus to talk about California’s Three Strikes law. The idea of the symposium was to encourage more informed and nuanced reporting on criminal justice issues in general, and the Three Strikes law in particular.
The event was sponsored by New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s Center on Media, Crime and Justice and conceived by Stephen Handelman, the Center’s director, and my pal Joe Domanick, who is the center’s associate director and an expert on the Three Strikes law, since he wrote the most authoritative book on the topic.
For two full days straight, there were panels and Q & A sessions with such people as Matthew Cate, the head of the California Department of Corrections, LA District Attorney, Steve Cooley, Civil Rights lawyer Connie Rice, San Francisco DA, George Gascon, LA’s new head Public Defender Ron Brown, former state senators Tom Hayden and Gloria Romero, plus a pile of academics and advocates from both ends of the political spectrum. There were also two men who had been put away for life by the law, but who had managed to get their cases reconsidered.
Unlike with most such gatherings, many of the officials and experts who came to be on panels, stayed on to become part of the small intense audience.
In broad strokes, the discussion focused on what good or harm the law had done, and what ought to be done about it now. Should it be left as is? Modified? Or should it be done away with?
Most who came seemed eager to share what they knew and the opinions among those who have dealt the most closely with the law were often surprising.
But, before we get to that, a little history on the law itself:
MORE:WitnessLA.com » Blog Archive » Is CA’s 3-Strikes Good or Bad Law? State & Local Officials Contemplate the Question
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