POPULAR INITIATIVE NEEDS CLOSER LOOK

The much-praised and much-maligned "Three Strikes" law in California should
be analyzed to determine how much impact it has had on California prisons.
That is the purpose of Senate Bill 873 now being debated in the Legislature.

The bill, introduced by Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, would require
that state legislative analyst examine the costs and benefits of the law and
report back to the Legislature by Dec. 31, 2000.

The "Three Strikes" initiative was approved overwhelmingly by California
voters in 1994 not long after the highly publicized kidnapping and murder of
12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma.

The law was designed to removed predators such as Polly's murderer, Richard
Allen Davis, from our streets.

It provides that anyone with two prior felony convictions must face an
indeterminate penalty of 25 years to life in prison for the third offense.

Critics of the law say it is has one big flaw.

A large percentage of those convicted under "Three Strikes" face this heavy
penalty for nonviolent offenses such as marijuana possession.

According to estimates, 50 percent of the third-strikers in California are
there for nonviolent offenses.

Polly's grandfather, Joe Klaas, who was heavily involved in the search for
her murderer and has been a feisty campaigner for tougher laws on crime, has
become disenchanted with the "Three Strikes" law.

He wrote in the Los Angeles Times, Aug 25:

"Added to the grief that Polly's death has caused, my family now regrets
that the law passed in her name casts too wide a net, fails to target the
hard-core offenders it set out to reach and has diverted critical funds from
crime prevention and education."

Klaas adds that three-strikers are flooding our prisons while other serious
offenders "are securing early release with alarming frequency."

Vasconcellos estimates that robberies and residential burglaries make up
about 30 percent of the new crimes that triggered application of the "Three
Strikes" sentencing increases.

In our view, enough serious questions have been raised about "Three Strikes"
that the law requires a close study as provided in SB 873.

We know that it costs $21,000 a year to house an inmate in California prison.

We need more facts and figures on the "Three Strikes" impact to understand
whether we want to continue to build more prisons to lock up nonviolent
offenders.

We need these facts to determine whether "Three Strikes" offers enough
benefits to justify its fiscal impact.

SB 873 should give us those answers. The Legislature should pass this bill,
and the governor should sign it.