Mike Reynolds Character Analysis

Mike Reynolds is Kimber Reynolds’s father. In the aftermath of Kimber’s shooting and subsequent death, Mike Reynolds gathers all the influential people he knows and brainstorms ways of addressing California’s high crime rate. He’s especially angry because Douglas Walker—one of the men involved in Kimber’s death—was temporarily released from prison to visit his pregnant wife and simply never returned. Worse, both Walker and his accomplice, Joe Davis, have long criminal records, which is why Reynolds comes up with the Three Strikes Law—a law that sends third-time offenders to prison for 25 years to life, no matter how small or insignificant their third crime is. Reynolds is extremely proud of the effect this law had on California, but Gladwell is unconvinced that Three Strikes did any good, since the crime rate had already begun to fall when Three Strikes was instituted, meaning that the decrease in crime can’t be attributed solely to the new policy. What’s more, there are numerous studies that suggest that Three Strikes actually had a negative impact on crime, but Reynolds remains proud of what he’s done—an example of how strongly people often hold to their convictions, even when their beliefs don’t necessarily align with reality.