NO ON PROP. 66

Three-Strikes Law Is Working; Don't Weaken It

You don't have to be a criminologist to see that California's three-strikes
law has been a powerful deterrent to career criminals.

Since its enactment in 1994, the state's crime rate has plummeted 45
percent -- twice the national average. That dramatic decrease owes largely
to the fact that far more felony parolees are leaving California than
coming here. Clearly, the word is out among repeat offenders that they are
likely to find themselves doing 25 years to life if they are convicted
again in California.

These facts, alone, are sufficient reason to oppose Proposition 66. The
Nov. 2 ballot measure would scale back the three-strikes law to require
that increased sentences be allowed only when the current conviction is for
a specified violent or serious felony. It would redefine such felonies and
permit conditional resentencing for convicts doing time under the original
three-strikes law. It also would increase punishment for specified sexual
crimes against children.

The child-protection provision seems designed to divert public attention
from the legal loopholes Proposition 66 would create for thousands of
career criminals. What's more, the measure's supposed savings by reducing
the state's prison population would be negated by the increased costs to
counties in returning inmates to jails for re-sentencing and release -- not
to mention the costs to society of the crimes they commit after being
freed. How many would be returned? The California District Attorneys
Association estimates some 26,000 would be shipped back to cash-strapped
counties whose jails are full to overflowing.

What's more, passage of this wrongheaded proposal would put millions of
law-abiding Californians at risk.

Since the three-strikes statue was enacted a decade ago, the California
Crime Index has decreased steadily to levels last seen during the
mid-1960s. The homicide rate has shown a corresponding decline. Why would
anyone want to return to the bad old days prior to the passage on this law
when California's crime rate was significantly higher than the national
average?

Critics of the law would have you believe it is so arbitrary that petty
criminals are being locked away for the rest of their lives for a
relatively minor third strike.

In fact, the law's intent is to ensure that dangerous criminals who are
neither deterred by incarceration or responsive to rehabilitation are put
behind bars and kept there where they cannot prey on the innocent. There is
sufficient prosecutorial and judicial discretion regarding previous strikes
to prevent miscarriages of justice.

Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, the three-strikes law has not
clogged the prisons with lifers. Just 4.6 percent of the state prison
population are serving life sentences pursuant to the statute. Nor has the
law's tougher sentencing compelled California to build scores of new
prisons. Since its passage 10 years ago, the state has seen a net increase
of five prisons, only one of which was approved after 1994.

The resounding 72 percent of California voters who approved the
three-strikes statute a decade ago should reaffirm their support for it by
soundly rejecting Proposition 66.