David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

for Three Strikes penalties in sentencing
criminals. Some cities, like San
Francisco, use it sparely. In some
counties in California’s Central Valley
—near where Mike Reynolds was from
—prosecutors have used it as many as
twenty-five times more often. If Three
Strikes really prevents crime, then there
should be a connection between how
often a county uses Three Strikes and
how quickly its crime falls. There isn’t.
If Three Strikes really acts as a
deterrent, then crime rates should drop
faster for those offenses that qualify for
the law’s penalties than for those that
don’t—right? So did they? They didn’t.
6 In the 1980s, California spent 10
percent of its budget on higher education