'3 STRIKES' STUDY SURVIVES

It at first looked like a black day in the state Assembly on Monday
regarding California's "three strikes"law, but it turned out to be a simple
oversight. The Assembly actually defeated SB 873, a bill by San Jose Sen.
John Vasconcellos that would have authorized an objective study of
California's "three strikes" law. Reading yesterday's news service wire
stories, it looked as if any hope of even beginning the process of
reconsidering California's uniquely onerous version of this legislation was
gone.

That would be a shame. Supporters of the "three strikes" law claim it has
caused the recent drop in violent crimes most official statistics have shown
in recent years. But the downward trend began three years before
California's 1994 ballot initiative even was passed. And the trend has been
nationwide, in states with and without "strike," laws.

California's law is uniquely severe. The third "strike," which carries a
sentence of 25 years to life, doesn't have to be a violent crime, just a
felony. There is no time limit for accumulating three "strikes," a provision
almost every other state has established.

The upshot is injustice: People who are not "career" violent criminals, but
perhaps burglars or drug users,are serving disproportionate amounts of
prison time and the cost to taxpayers of this useless incarceration will
continue to rise.

SB 873 wouldn't have changed the "strikes" law, but authorized an official
study of its costs and benefits to facilitate more informed decisions. Its
35-29 defeat, which seemed to have happened Monday, would have been an ugly
development - suggesting that "three strikes" supporters were either
uninterested in an objective study or afraid that a study would create
support for sensible reforms they didn't want to make.

We talked to Sen. Vasconcellos' chief of staff, Rand Martin, however, and he
says it's not that bad. It seems when the bill was on the Assembly floor
Monday they discovered that a key sentence had not been added. So Sen.
Vasconcellos asked for it to be defeated so it could be fixed and brought up
later. It should come up again Thursday or Friday. We recommend a yes vote.