Study Challenges Effect of 3 Strikes

On the third anniversary of California’s landmark three-strikes law, a new study suggests that the measure and similar laws in other states have not reduced crime.

The report by the Washington-based Justice Policy Institute, a left-leaning organization, found that states that have not enacted harsher prison sentences for repeat felons have actually experienced a slightly greater drop in crime than states that do have such laws.

The study counters assertions made by many politicians and law enforcement advocates that longer prison sentences for repeat criminals have made the streets safer. It is the latest in a series of studies that underscore the profound disagreement over whether the three-strikes concept reduces crime. The debate is further complicated by the nation’s shrinking crime rate and widespread uncertainty about the root cause of that trend.

“Basically, [the study] says the early statistics about three strikes are inconclusive at best and disappointing at worst,” said Vincent Schiraldi, co-author of the report and director of the institute.

But California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, a strong supporter of the law, disputed the study’s findings as faulty. And some criminal justice experts said the report’s conclusions are no more reliable than those previously offered by proponents of the law.

For its analysis, the institute--a project of the nonprofit Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice--compared the crime rates for 1994 and 1995 in the 13 states that adopted three-strikes laws in 1993 or 1994 and the remainder that did not have such legislation.

It found that in both violent and nonviolent crime, states that did not have three-strikes statutes had more dramatic drops in crime than states that had such laws.

Violent crime fell by 4.6% in states that do not have three-strikes laws, compared with the 1.7% decline for states that do have those laws.

In California, which has imposed tougher prison sentences for more than 15,000 inmates since the law took effect three years ago today, the decline in violent crime from 1994 to 1995 was 4.2% and the overall decline in crime was slightly higher, at 5%.

The report noted that New York, which does not have a three-strikes law, recorded a 13% decline in violent crime and a 10.2% decrease in all crime. Most of that decline is attributed to a sharp decrease in reported crime in New York City, which reached its lowest level in a quarter-century.

The report, Schiraldi said, shows that “so far, three strikes is not helping to reduce crime. . . . People shouldn’t make grandiose conclusions about it reducing crime based on one or two years’ data . . . because these numbers show all the proclamations about its impact have been excessive.”

Schiraldi was particularly critical of Lungren, who has often praised the law as being pivotal in reducing the state’s crime rate.

“I think he has gotten way out ahead of himself on this data and he should apologize to the people of California because he has a special responsibility as attorney general . . . to tell citizens what is happening with crime and why.”

The Rand Corp.’s Peter Greenwood said the latest report is “an antidote to the Dan Lungren argument that crime is down, therefore three strikes is working.”

But Lungren dismissed the report, saying in a statement prepared by his office in Sacramento: “Mr. Schiraldi attempts to disapprove facts that are otherwise readily understood by the average citizen. And that is that longer prison sentences for career criminals lead to safer communities.”

Frank Zimring, professor of law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, said that while the study is based on “statistically gross” comparisons, it nonetheless deflates “a very vulnerable balloon. It says you cannot make a convincing case . . . from existing statistical analysis that three strikes is a silver bullet reducing crime.”

Like Greenwood, Zimring said the report underscores the need for a comprehensive analysis of how three-strikes laws are affecting crime rates and prison populations nationwide.

“Nobody has done that good qualitative analysis,” said Zimring, “One side is saying, ‘Look, the crime rate has dropped after this law’ and other people are saying, ‘Look, the crime rate is even lower in New York so it couldn’t have been that helpful.’ So what it becomes is sort of a playground argument, a ‘my daddy can beat up your daddy.’ And what is absent is analysis of what the law has done.”