3-STRIKES LAW CALLED NO DETERRENT

Justice: Tough Sentencing Law Has Had Little Effect On Hardened Criminals
And No Link To The Crime Rate Drop In State, UC Report Shows.

Dan Morain, Times Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO--California's three-strikes law, the nation's toughest such
statute, has had little deterrent effect on hardened criminals, or
influence on the state's drop in crime, a study by University of California
researchers released Monday shows.

The study by UC Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring comes as the
legislative analyst's office issued an update showing that almost 50,000
felons have been sent to prison under the statute's terms since it took
effect five years ago.

Although touted by leading state politicians as a significant
crime-stopper, the three-strikes law has deterred few if any criminals,
Zimring concluded. The report notes that the percentage of arrests of
felons facing three-strikes sentences dropped by only 1% in the two years
after the law took effect.

Approved by the Legislature in 1994, and by voters in a 1994 initiative,
the law doubles prison terms for criminals who commit a felony after they
have been convicted of one prior serious or violent crime, ranging from
burglary to homicide.

The law imposes sentences of 25 years to life on criminals who commit a
third felony--no matter the nature of the crime--after they have been
convicted of two prior serious or violent crimes.

According to the Zimring report, crime began dropping in 1991, three years
before the law took effect. Although it has continued to decline since, the
fall leveled off in 1994, before the sharp decline resumed.

"Whatever has reduced crime in California over the mid-1990s, it does not
appear that the 1994 legislation played a major role," says the report,
co-written by Zimring, University of Denver law professor Sam Kamin, and
Gordon Hawkins, senior fellow at the Earl Warren Legal Institute.

The study probably will not result in a change to the law, at least not any
time soon. The three-strikes law remains popular among California voters,
and Gov. Gray Davis repeatedly has voiced support for it.

"Three strikes has been an effective law," Davis spokesman Michael
Bustamante said Monday. "It is something he continues to support."

At a news conference Monday, Zimring, who is generally viewed as a liberal
scholar, described the three-strikes law as "troubling." Even if the study
does not prompt changes to the law, he said it challenges contentions that
it deters criminals from committing crimes.

Zimring also called for more studies, describing the California statute as
"the most significant punitive penal reform in the second half of the 20th
century in the United States."

Overall, the study said, only one in 10 three-time offenders are sentenced
to 25 years to life. Far more two-time offenders are sentenced under the
law's provisions.

Zimring said that prosecutors prefer the option of doubling sentences for
two-time convicts but are often more reluctant to seek life sentences for
three-time felons if their crimes are relatively minor.

The study focused on 3,500 criminal cases in Los Angeles, San Diego and San
Francisco in the first two years after the law took effect. Zimring found
that there were significant differences among prosecutors' approaches to
the law in the three counties.

In San Diego, prosecutors used the law more often than prosecutors in the
other counties, and the length of sentences increased more dramatically.
Sentences for most third-strikers in San Diego increased to at least 14.5
years after 1994, from about two years in prison before 1994.

The increase was less pronounced in Los Angeles. But in Los Angeles, the
percentage of three-time felons who were incarcerated rose to 52.7% from
40% in the year before the law took effect.

In San Francisco, the percentage of prison terms after arrests of potential
three-time cases actually fell to 21.7%, compared with 34.7% before the law
took effect. Zimring attributed the San Francisco numbers to prosecutors'
policy of sending repeat felons back to prison on parole violations for
relatively short terms, rather than retrying them for their new crimes.

"San Diego was in a class by itself," Zimring said at the news conference.
"If I am going to steal pizza, that's not a town I want to do in. Los
Angeles appears to be much more selective. San Francisco appears . . . not
to use the third strike."

Meanwhile, the legislative analyst's update predicts that by 2000, a fourth
of the state's 165,000 prison inmates will be serving two- and three-strike
sentences. The update says the most common offenses for two-time losers
involve drugs possession, followed by petty theft. The most common offense
for three-time losers is robbery, followed by burglary.

The legislative analyst notes that blacks make up 37% of the felons serving
prison terms as two-time convicts, and 44% of the felons serving 25 years
to life.

Zimring's study points out that although African Americans account for 36%
of all felony arrests, they make up 50% of the felons eligible to be
sentenced as two-time offenders, and two-thirds of the criminals who face
25-year-to-life sentences as three-time felons.

He said the disparity is because black criminals commit far more robberies
than do whites, Latinos, or Asians, and that robbery is one of the crimes
that counts as a "strike."

"It isn't that prosecutors are picking on that particular group," Zimring
said. "It is that the statute is picking on that particular group."

[Sidebar]
Striking Out In March 1994, the three-strikes measure was signed into law.
Now, five years after its enactment, almost 50,000 inmates have been
imprisoned under the law.

Percentage of second- and third-strike inmates in California's prisons 28%

*Projected Source: Legislative analyst's office

Matt Moody, Los Angeles Times