Experts Note Pros, Cons of ‘3 Strikes’ Law

California’s “three-strikes” law was approved by voters frustrated with so-called revolving door justice who wanted to put violent career criminals behind bars for years.

Under the law, anyone convicted of two violent felonies who is found guilty of a third has to be sentenced to a prison term of 25 years to life. However, the third strike does not have to be for a violent crime.

But while some argue that the three strikes measure is putting career criminals behind bars and is a deterrent for other criminals, others argue the law is a burden to local governments and courts. Studies have shown that the law cost $172 million this year to enforce and is projected to cost $309 million next year.

Is the three strikes law working?

State Attorney General Dan Lungren:

“California is continuing to experience a significant drop in crime. This positive trend began in 1993 and accelerated during the last 18 months as the state’s ‘Three Strikes’ law hit California’s more hyperactive career criminals . . . Career criminals are either receiving longer sentences for their crimes, or are deciding that committing a new crime is no longer worth the risk.”

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Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block:

“The answer is yes and no . . . It is working by placing career criminals in prison for long periods of time . . . But there were no provisions to deal with the extra workload created by the three strikes law. As a consequence, our jail is full of three-strike offenders and we have had to release lesser offenders because of the overcrowding. The system loses any deterrent effect that was needed against lesser criminals, and if they are not punished then they may go out there and perhaps commit more serious crimes and perhaps we will create a new crop of three-strikers . . . If there had been another proposition that had included a tax to pay for the enforcement of three strikes, I believe it would have passed overwhelmingly. But the people were never given a chance to do that.”

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Michael Gottlieb, senior attorney, public defender’s office in Van Nuys:

“What is happening is that people who have relatively minor cases on their third strike are being sent away for 25 years to life, which in any other situation would have been a minor sentence. We’re seeing people sent away for possessing a tenth of a gram of methamphetamine, for stealing shoes and a couple of boxes of Tylenol . . . At the same time, if your client is being offered nothing, what do they have to lose by going to trial . . . I think what they need to do is modify the law to say that the third strike has to be a violent felony. Even defense lawyers would not have a problem with that.”

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Larry Diamond, deputy district attorney in Van Nuys:

“We’re stuck with the law that the legislature and the voters give to us and we end up having to enforce a law that probably includes some people who don’t need to be incarcerated for life or for long periods of time . . . There are some individuals who are older who have a bad record who don’t represent that much of a threat to the community . . . As far as its impact on the courts, I think that’s vastly overstated . . . If you actually look at the statistics, you can see the judicial system is coping quite well with a relatively small increase in trials.”