Three-strikes laws, O'Connor observed, represented a new trend in criminal sentencing. "These laws respond[] to widespread public concerns about crime by targeting the class of offenders who pose the greatest threat to public safety: career criminals." Such laws were a "deliberate policy choice" on the part of legislatures to isolate those who have "repeatedly engaged in serious or violent criminal behavior" from the rest of society in order to protect public safety. For O'Connor, the desire to punish repeat criminals more harshly was "no pretext" for the legitimate policy choice that the three-strikes law implemented. Such laws serve the valid penological goals of incapacitation and deterrence. Although California's three-strikes law may have generated some controversy, "we do not sit as a superlegislature to second-guess" the policy choices made by particular states. "It is enough that the State of California has a reasonable basis for believing that dramatically enhanced sentences for habitual felons advances the goals of its criminal justice system in any substantial way."