‘3 Strikes’ Found Hobbled by Enormous Prison Costs : Law: RAND says full implementation would cut crime by one-third. But huge price tag makes that unlikely.

California’s sweeping “three strikes and you’re out” sentencing law could reduce serious crime by as much as a third, but the bill’s enormous price tag is likely to prevent it from ever being fully implemented, according to the first comprehensive analysis of the policy’s likely impact.

The RAND study of the legislation, which became law in March after relatively little legislative debate on its effects, concluded that the cost would be $5.5 billion annually--or $300 per taxpayer. Most of that increase would go for building and operating additional prisons to house an inmate population expected to double as a result of the bill’s tougher sentences.

But fully funding the bill’s costs is unlikely, according to the study released Wednesday, because it would require one of two unpopular choices: a substantial tax increase or steep reductions in spending on higher education, parks, environmental cleanup and other programs.

“Clearly, something’s got to give” in the criminal justice system, as the number of felons going to trials and being sent to prison for long terms increases, said Peter Greenwood, a RAND criminologist who directed the study financed by the Santa Monica-based think tank.

Most likely, he said, the bill’s stiff penalties will be applied selectively, undermining its effectiveness. “That’s ironic,” he said, “because ‘three strikes’ was written to take this out of the hands of prosecutors and judges.”

Proponents of the bill, which is almost identical to Proposition 184 on the November ballot, attacked the study for failing to consider the economic benefits of the measure’s effectiveness in deterring crime as well as such positive effects as lower insurance rates.

Mike Reynolds, the Fresno businessman who proposed the legislation after his daughter was murdered, said a drop in the statewide crime rate during the first six months of 1994 was partly attributable to criminals’ fears of being hit with long prison terms. The number of serious crimes reported in the state for the first six months of 1994 was 7.7% below the same period last year.

“While RAND is doing surveys . . . three strikes is just knocking the hell out of crime in California,” Reynolds said. “It’s doing the job it is intended to do, and the felons doing time today are extremely concerned about their future.”

One of the bill’s co-authors, Assemblyman Bill Jones (R-Fresno), cited an earlier governor’s office study that said the legislation would actually save $25 billion in lower private medical costs, insurance premiums and spending on security in its first five years. That study has been disputed by RAND researchers for its misinterpretation of RAND data concerning the frequency of crime by career criminals.

“I think it is totally inappropriate to discount the societal savings,” Jones said. “If we’re not able to generate a stronger economy because businesses . . . would rather go where crime rates are less . . . we’ll never be able to pay the bill for the services we are providing.”

The RAND study did not look at how the 6-month-old bill is being implemented. Instead, it relied on data from previous studies of career criminals, recidivism and crime rates.

In Los Angeles County, a number of the early “three strikes” prosecutions involved offenses such as burglarizing a house and stealing a slice of pizza. Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti has warned that the system has become more congested and that he needs more prosecutors.

For comparison purposes, the study examined several alternatives to the “three strikes” measure now on the books.

One such alternative merely eliminated the crime measure’s most publicized and harshest element, the 25-years-to-life sentence required for three-time felons with convictions for two or more serious or violent prior offenses. Instead they would be sentenced under the bill’s “two strike” provisions that effectively tripled sentences for serious crimes.

About 15% fewer serious crimes would be prevented from occurring under that option than under the present “three strikes” provision. But the option would cost $1.5 billion a year less to implement.

Another crime reduction strategy examined by RAND was fully enforcing the maximum sentences on the books before “three strikes” for serious crimes, such as residential burglary, robberies, rapes and murders. That would reduce the incidence of those crimes by the same amount as “three strikes” but cost $1 billion less per year.

To prevent crime, Greenwood said, it would be even more cost-effective to spend money to address social problems such as child abuse, drug addiction and poverty.

The state would accomplish more crime prevention by spending $1 million each to steer crime-prone children away from trouble than by fully implementing “three strikes,” he said. However, he acknowledged, experts cannot readily identify children and adults most prone to crime.

If voters approve Proposition 184 in November, and the Legislature does not amend “three strikes,” prosecutors and judges will have to scramble to find ways to keep courts from becoming gridlocked and prisons from filling up faster than they can be built, the study found.

The study concluded that another possible outcome is that younger and more violent prisoners who have not accrued “strikes” may be released more readily than older criminals who may be locked up for life because they have longer criminal histories. That possibility, RAND said, would actually result in a higher rate of serious crime.