‘3 Strikes’ Costs to Taxpayers

* “Costs to Soar Under ‘3 Strikes’ Plan, Study Says” (March 1) is another example of a “detailed study” by the type of bureaucrat that we California taxpayers have working on our behalf. There was no mention in this article that any officials interviewed had factored into their extrapolations, projecting budget doom, a possible reduction in crime, which would result in a reduction in projected incarceration rates, hence a subsequent reduction in costs over the longer term. Why are the public mood, the Senate vote and simple logic so utterly disregarded by the officials quoted?

LEONARD M. LINTON

Thousand Oaks

* Why is everyone making such a fuss over the various “three strikes and you’re out” proposals when California already has such a law on the books?

Penal Code Section 667.7, the habitual offender statute, provides that anyone convicted of a third violent felony shall be sentenced to life in prison and must serve at least 20 years before becoming eligible for parole. Anyone convicted of a fourth violent felony receives life without parole. Why do we need a new “three strikes and you’re out” law when the existing law is apparently not being used? Why are the politicians trying to con us into believing that “three strikes and you’re out” is some sort of radical new concept in dealing with violent criminals?

ARNIE BELL

Venice

* Opponents of the “three strikes” proposals harp on the tremendous cost of removing these hard-core felons from society, but they never seem to consider the enormous savings that the innocent potential victims will enjoy. Get real, you guys.

P. D. BOATWRIGHT

Westlake Village

* Amazing how we can find $2 billion to build prisons but we can’t find $2 billion to help the kids in the high-crime areas before they grow into such desperate adults--like building recreation centers. Let’s admit that our “American way of life” is a failure if all we can do is lock people up.

JUNE ARONSON

Reseda

* Three strikes and out-of-sight new taxes: What will they be? Business corporate tax, personal income tax, real property tax, sales tax, or all of them.

Los Angeles County’s share of a $10 billion outlay (the low estimate) would be more than $2 billion.

GEORGE R. McCLENAHAN

La Jolla

* I read with some disbelief the Column Left by Alexander Cockburn (March 1). Does he really mean to blame the violence currently rampant in society on Vietnam veterans? His figures for this conclusion are somewhat nebulous. His hostility for anyone who has worn a uniform is not. It is obvious.

To blame veterans is yet another simplistic solution to a very real problem. If columnists and politicians would get off their hobbyhorses and examine the many causes of violence, instead of offering single-issue simple solutions, they might actually do some good. The idea that the problem of violence can be solved by blaming any one group, in this case veterans, is almost as disgusting as it is foolish.

G. E. WARRINGTON

Anaheim

* Cockburn blames Christopher Golly’s killing Los Angeles Police Officer Christy Lynne Hamilton, his father, and himself on the fact that the father served in Vietnam two decades ago. Cockburn adds that the homicide rate invariably goes up after wars, for both victors and losers, veterans and non-veterans. In fact, the U.S. homicide rate rose after World War I, fell after Korea and rose after Vietnam. Cockburn has every right to express his bizarre anti-American opinions, but he has no right to support them with invented “facts” that have no basis in reality.

DAVID C. STOLINSKY

Los Angeles