The research noted that the California law does not require the third strike to be a serious or violent offense; the offense may be one of approximately 500 felony offenses. The participants included 73 offenders taken from a random sample of 555 offenders from Canada’s Federal male offender population and 84 offenders taken from a random sample of male offenders in Canada’s prairie region. The participants included only offenders who had committed their first serious or violent offense that amounted to a strike-equivalent offense at age 25 or under. Results revealed that almost one-third of the offenders whom California’s Three Strikes law would target do not go on to commit future violent offenses. Thus, the incarceration of these offenders would not have an impact on reducing violent crime rates. Findings suggested that California’s "Three Strikes and You’re Out" law has a dangerous potential to over-incarcerate offenders. In addition, the estimated false positive rates in this study probably underestimated the actual rate of false positives. Table, appended background information, and 10 references