3-Strikes Law Does Serve the State Well

One apparent result of last fall’s election has been to energize an effort to abandon the three-strikes sentencing of habitual criminals. Debate about the law has intensified during the 1999 legislative session. Earlier this year, Gov. Gray Davis vetoed one measure that would have provided alternatives to confinement for certain criminals, and now he is being urged by fellow Democrats to sign Senate Bill 873, which would authorize the legislative analyst to study the impact of the three-strikes law.

In news stories, opponents often misrepresent how three-strikes is being enforced and its effect on crime. For example:

Claim: The majority of criminals sentenced under the three-strikes law have been convicted of nonviolent crimes, like marijuana possession or petty theft.

Fact: In order to receive a three-strikes sentence, a criminal must be convicted of a second violent or serious felony. Violent felonies include crimes like murder, rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault and arson. Serious felonies include furnishing or selling drugs to children, residential burglary, carjacking and strong-armed robbery. A criminal who has earned a second strike receives at least double the prison term he received for the first conviction. For example, the sentence for forcible rape is six years. A second rape conviction would carry a minimum of 12 years. A person with two prior violent or serious felony convictions who commits a third felony can qualify for a third-strike sentence of 25 years to life. Petty theft and possession of marijuana for personal use are misdemeanors, not felonies.

When the three-strikes law was adopted in 1994, a person with two prior violent or serious felony convictions who was convicted for a second time of petty theft did qualify for the third strike. In 1996, the California Supreme Court held that trial judges have the discretion to ignore any prior convictions they determined would unjustly qualify the criminal for the 25-to-life sentence. Because few criminals specialize in only violent crimes, the majority of those going to prison under the three-strikes law are professional felons. Many have committed violent crimes in the past and, if surprised or confronted, would do so again.

Claim: No evidence links the three-strikes law to the decline in crime.

Fact: Since adoption of three-strikes, California has outpaced the national drop in violent crime by 26.7%. The state’s homicide rate has plummeted to the level it was in 1966, and violent crime is down one-third since 1994. This has been especially important to people living in the state’s larger cities. People living in Detroit, a city with one-third the population of Los Angeles, suffer twice the rate of murder and rape of Angelenos.

Claim: Three-strikes enforcement will tie up billions of taxpayers’ dollars for decades to come. Each prisoner serving a 25-to-life sentence will cost the state about $500,000 over his or her lifetime.

Fact: University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt estimates the savings in crime costs by keeping one habitual criminal in prison at $53,900 per year. That’s $1,347,500 over 25 years that will not be spent--leaving $847,500 left for education and crime prevention programs after paying the cost of imprisonment. And can you even put a dollar value on murder, rape or burglary?

Claim: With second- and third-strikers flooding our prisons, other serious offenders are securing early release.

Fact: California prisons are not releasing anyone early because of the three-strikes law. Initially, some county jails were giving early releases to some nonviolent offenders, but this has subsided over the past three years.

The key to three strikes and similar sentencing laws is that they target repeat felons. Because criminals face only a 1-in-12 chance of being arrested for each crime they commit, most have actually committed scores of serious crimes by the time they are convicted of a third felony. Should we go easy on the criminal with two prior convictions for rape because his most recent felony is for drug dealing?

A look back over the past 50 years shows that when habitual criminals are kept behind bars, the crime rate goes down. When that policy is weakened or abandoned, the crime rate goes up. More than 120,000 fewer men, women and children have become victims of murder, violent assault or rape in California since the three-strikes law was adopted. There have also been 450,000 fewer homes burglarized, 339,000 fewer cars stolen, and more than 170,000 fewer robberies. Weakening the three-strikes law would put a higher value on the interests of three-time felons than on the safety of thousands of innocent Californians. This is hardly the wise path to a safer California.