Justice Is Not a Game: The Devastating Racial Inequity of Washington’s Three Strikes Law

From the introduction:

“The report begins by examining the racial impact of the Persistent Offender Accountability Act (POAA) through data. The racially disparate application of the Three Strikes Law has been documented since shortly after the law’s passage and has held constant for more than two decades. This report presents the most recent data related to overrepresentation and disproportionality of people of color caused by the POAA. Demographic data on all POAA sentences was gathered for this report and shows that Black people are represented in the three-strikes population at a rate more than 8 times greater than their population in the state. Indigenous people are also overrepresented—making up 2% of the state’s population and over 4% of those sentenced to life without parole under the Three Strikes Law. While racial disproportionality is a problem throughout the criminal legal system, it is most severe in the three-strikes context, where the punishment is the harshest.”