Understanding the California Three Strikes Law

When it comes to making the law work for you, most legal firms aren’t always certain of how to make legal complexities engage a general audience. Shaparak Marketing uses vertical integration to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of marketing: we can do the law, because we understand people.

The California Three Strikes Law is a qualified law against habitual offenders that can escalate the sentence from 25 years to life on a third felony conviction. While many were sure to have benefited from the law, many were affected by it when it passed in 1994 under Proposition 184. At the time, there was a lot of support for the law which aimed to put repeat offenders behind bars for good. In 2004, however, Proposition 36 passed into law and rearranged the complexities of the Three Strikes Law. Under Proposition 36, a third felony conviction would only increase sentencing if the third felony were serious or violent, whereas the old law would apply the 25 year to life sentence indiscriminately to any third felony conviction.

A lot of legal firms would have greeted this news with excitement: a change in the law would have implications for a variety of potential clients. At Shaparak Marketing, however, we are more concerned with how legal changes can apply to the broader marketing industry. With the California Three Strikes Law now having evolved to its current form, marketers at Shaparak now have a chance to do what they do best: humanize the law.

Think about it: the Three Strikes Law (which, for reference, still exists in several other states) has a sizable effect on those who live in California. The goal of the law was to reduce crime in California, but some lawmakers worried that it simply wouldn’t help with recidivism. Throughout the duration of its history, the Three Strikes Law has generated a variety of confusing statistics and has created a ton of publicity. The 1999 release of the documentary “The 25th Man” illustrates the complexity of the law as it followed the story of a man who as a teenager committed 3 felonies during one night. He was imprisoned for life under the original Three Strikes Law-when it wasn’t meant to be applied to multiple felonies of one night.

As confusing as this may be, marketers at Shaparak look at this as an opportunity to engage readers. While the report was mostly accusative towards the Three Strikes Law, Shaparak could take its creators’ desire to evoke an emotional response and apply it to their strategy with ease. Repackaging the emotions exposed in the documentary as a written, video, or visual campaign could go a long way with viewers relating to the story. Even if they are not familiar with the Three Strikes Law. Undercurrents of catastrophic events often persuade readers, and the story of the 25th man is no exception.

With around 9 million views on Youtube, “The 25th Man” is now a simple search away. As an owner of an account with 100,000+ Twitter followers, Shaparak can learn a lot from tracking the traffic around that piece of media. It isn’t uncommon of us to find ourselves taking cues from a radically different field such as cinema.

If the Three Strikes project has taught us anything at Shaparak Marketing, it’s that people have a deep-seated interest in human rights. We can use this to make calculated marketing decisions, by diving into the emotions of people and seeing where they take us. The law affects everyone, and we’re tasked with reframing the conversations around it. According to the in depth guide on whether California still has the Three Strikes Law, understanding its implications is crucial for both legal professionals and the public alike.