California's Three Strikes and You're Out law has, from its inception, been nothing if not controversial.  It has been bitterly attacked as ineffectual, too expensive, and racist.  Three Strikes and You're Out has generated a great deal of discourse as to whether or not scarce public resources are better directed toward prevention or punishment of crime.  Or whether effective punishment is, in and of itself, an effective deterrent.

     Countless radio and television shows, as well as newspaper and magazine articles, have played out this debate, although few of them have approached the subject without a preexisting bias.  More often than not, that bias has been anti-Three Strikes.  While much of the news media falsely purported to present the arguments surrounding Three Strikes in a dispassionate manner, the authors of this book make no such claim.  Nevertheless, we believe this book to contain a more accurate and complete version of the events leading up to the enactment of one of the nation's most controversial criminal sentencing laws than any presented thus far.

      This is the story of Three Strikes and You're Out as chronicled by those who were intimately involved to see it enacted, and who believe in it passionately.  It is the story of one family's heartbreak and the ultimate victory of common sense and justice in the face of overwhelming odds.  In spite of the thousands of words which have already been written about Three Strikes, it is a story that has not yet been told