Symbol and Substance
Effects of California's Three Strikes Law on Felony Sentencing
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4085012 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John R Sutton (University of California, Santa Barbara, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-71 |
| Publication date | 2013-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Law & Society Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0023-9216 • E-ISSN: 1540-5893 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/lasr.12001 |
| OpenAlex | W2161015612 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
| References cited | 76 |
California's "three strikes and you're out" law is the most notorious example of the wave of mandatory sentencing policies that many states enacted beginning in the late 1970s. While advocates and critics predicted the law would have profound effects on aggregate punishment trends and individual case outcomes, Feeley and Kamin's analysis of previous sentencing reforms suggested the law's impact would be mainly symbolic because local officials would ignore, subvert, or nullify its major provisions. While aggregate analyses have tended to confirm this argument, so far there has been no systematic test of the law's effect on individual cases. This analysis uses multilevel models applied to case-level data from 12 urban California counties to test hypotheses about shifts in average punitiveness, the relative influence of legal and extralegal factors on sentencing, and the uncertainty of sentencing outcomes. Results mostly support Feeley and Kamin's symbolic interpretation, but also reveal important substantive impacts: since Three Strikes, sentences have become harsher, particularly in politically conservative counties, and black felons receive longer prison sentences
Argument (complex analysis · Criminology · Imprisonment · Interpretation (philosophy · Political science · Prison · Punishment (psychology · Sociology · Symbol (formal · Test (biology · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Education Discipline and Inequality · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
“If we don’t take them off our streets, they’re going to continue to prey on innocent people.”
Ending Mass Incarceration
Addressing the Race Gap in Incarceration Rates
Durkheim, Punishment, and Prison Privatization
The Place of Punishment in Twenty-First-Century America
The state of race and punishment in America
Bail denied or bail too high? Disentangling cumulative disadvantage by pretrial detention type
Mass Incarceration and Its Discontents
The Politics of Symbolic Laws
Flexible Labor and Political Competition
Hidden Disparities
Effects of a voter initiative on disparities in punishment severity for drug offenses across California counties
Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker
Calabresi's invite
Heterogeneous and racialized impacts of state incarceration policies on birth outcomes in the United States
The Unintended consequences of sentencing reforms
Felony justice
Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models
Charging and Plea Bargaining Practices under Determinate Sentencing
A Multilevel Analysis of Community Effects on Criminal Sentencing
Why is There So Little Criminal Justice Theory? Neglected Macro- and Micro-Level Links between Organization and Power
Social context and racial disparities in punishment decisions
Location, location, location
Gender and Case Processing Decisions
The Collapse of American Criminal Justice
Punishment and DemocracyThree Strikes and You're Out in California
On the Racial Disproportionality of United States' Prison Populations
The Comparative Method
Effects of Individual Characteristics on Plea Negotiations Under Sentencing Guidelines
The Impact of `Three Strikes and You're Out
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Crime and Criminal Justice in the United States
Structuring Sentencing
The effect of three-strikes legislation on serious crime in California
Displaced discretion under Ohio sentencing guidelines
Partisan Politics, Electoral Competition and Imprisonment
Modeling the Effects of Legally Relevant and Extralegal Factors Under Sentencing Guidelines
Race, Ethnicity, and Determinate Sentencing
The Imprisonment Penalty Paid by Young, Unemployed Black and Hispanic Male Offenders
Images of Danger and Culpability
Gender and Imprisonment Decisions
Racial and Ethnic Differences in Pretrial Release Decisions and Outcomes
Selective Incapacitation and the Problem of Prediction
Adversarial and Nonadversarial Justice
Court Communities Under Sentencing Guidelines
Sentencing in Context
Ethnicity and Sentencing Outcomes in U.S. Federal Courts
Remand for Plea. Bail Decisions and Plea Bargaining as Commensurate Decisions
Accountability and Coercion
Holistic Effects in Social Control Decision-Making
Doing Time
Racial Disparities in Official Assessments of Juvenile Offenders
On the Run
The Political Economy of Imprisonment in Affluent Western Democracies, 1960-1990
Sentencing under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines
Some Determinants of the Method of Case Disposition
Does It Pay to Plead Guilty? Differential Sentencing and the Functioning of Criminal Courts
Demography of the Legal Profession and Racial Disparities in Sentencing
(Un)anticipated Effects of Sentencing Reform on the Disparate Treatment of Defendants
Racial Disparities in the Punishment of Youth
An Integration of Theories to Explain Judicial Discretion
Normal Crimes
The Politics of Punishment across Time and Space
Rethinking Judicial Paternalism
Death Penalty Charging in Los Angeles County
Bayesian Analysis for Sociologists
Toward a Political Model of Incarceration
The Organizational Context of Criminal Sentencing
Law That Does Not Fit Society
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,33 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2025 (12) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |