CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / GOVERNOR : Wilson Vows Longer Terms for Rapists

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) said Monday that if he is elected governor in November he will seek significantly longer prison terms for convicted rapists and expand state programs against domestic violence in California.

Flanked by police chiefs, local prosecutors and a rape victim, the candidate said that convicted rapists now may get as little as three years in prison and can be free within 18 months because of time off for good behavior. Wilson’s complex proposal would increase most rape terms to a minimum of 18 years, he said.

A spokesman for the state Department of Corrections said first-time rapists now spend an average of 44 months in confinement before parole, including about eight months in county jails before they are sentenced to state prison. The spokesman, Tip Kindel, said he is not aware of any major push in the state Legislature for tougher rape terms.

Wilson told a news conference staged on the steps of Los Angeles County Jail that California cannot call itself civilized until it can assure women that they are safe in their homes and on the streets.

In response to questions from reporters, the senator denied that he is making a special effort to appeal to women in an attempt to offset any advantage among them enjoyed by his Democratic opponent, former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein. “This is not simply a women’s issue,” he said.

Wilson’s proposal came in the seventh year of the tough-on-crime administration of Republican governor George Deukmejian, and 14 years after California adopted determinate-sentencing laws demanded by conservatives who worried that criminals might receive light sentences from lenient judges or sympathetic parole authorities.

Feinstein has proposed a return to the indeterminate-sentencing system. She has said that fixed terms have not worked the way conservatives hoped. Rigid sentences deny state parole authorities the flexibility they need to keep an inmate in custody if the convict still is considered a threat to the community, Feinstein has said.

But Wilson argued that present law gives too much discretion to prosecutors and judges and is too generous in allowing time off for good behavior. His proposal would make most violent sex crimes subject to prison terms of 18 or 24 years with a virtual elimination of time off for good behavior. It would provide for the possibility of life terms without parole.

Wilson acknowledged that the cost of more prisoners serving longer terms might run as much as $60 million over the first five years of the program, but he said, “We are simply going to have to spend what is required because this is, in my judgment, the most urgent priority.”

While Wilson’s press conference focused on rape, the domestic violence portion of his proposed crime package might have broader application. “We are going to take domestic violence out of the bedroom and put it in the courtroom,” he said.

Wilson proposed creation of a demonstration program in which police would be required to arrest suspected wife-abusers if there is probable cause even if the victim prefers not to bring charges. Courts could compel the victim to testify against the spouse.

The Wilson plan also would expand the state’s network of shelters for victims of spousal abuse. Wilson did not offer a specific plan for financing the program, but has said that many such projects could be supported by changing present spending priorities in Sacramento and by the use of tobacco tax income that may be reallocated beginning in the spring of 1991.