"3 STRIKES" LAMBASTED AS CRIME-FIGHTING TOOL

INSTITUTE SAYS S.F. DIDN'T STRICTLY ENFORCE LAW, BUT STILL HAD BIG DROP

A new study, partly based on San Francisco statistics, says that
California's "three-strikes" law is not responsible for the 37 percent
reduction in crime throughout the state over the past four years.

The study, released Tuesday by the nonprofit Justice Policy Institute in San
Francisco, contradicts a report released last week by California Secretary
of State Bill Jones lauding three-strikes.

The competing findings were made public just as legislators in Sacramento
are rethinking the 1994 law, which allows nonviolent offenders to be
sentenced to 25-years-to-life on their third conviction. In California,
convictions for property crimes, such as shoplifting or bicycle theft, can
be a third strike. Most states with similar repeat felon laws require that
third offense triggering a possible life sentence be a violent crime.

The Justice Policy Institute study notes that crime decreased at a greater
rate in San Francisco, where comparatively few three-strikes cases were
prosecuted, than in six other urban counties that used the law more
frequently. The City experienced a greater decline in violent crime,
homicides and overall major crime than the six counties that proportionately
used the three-strikes law the most.

For example, Los Angeles and Sacramento counties invoked the law seven times
as often as Alameda and San Francisco counties, but did not show a greater
reduction in crime, according to the Justice Policy Institute.

"San Francisco registered its great drop in crime even though it was not
enforcing three-strikes as it could have," said Dan Macallair, a co-author
of the Justice Policy Institute study. "We did a county-by-county comparison
that shows three-strikes is not responsible for the drop in the state's
crime rate."

The study also found that older felons, in their 30s and 40s, were eight
times more likely to be sentenced under the three-strikes law than those in
their 20s. More than 40,000 people have been convicted of second and third
strikes, a quarter of the state's prison population. About 4,400 of them
were sentenced to 25-years-to-life.

Jones, author of California's three-strikes law, said, "The numbers pretty
much speak for themselves." He accused the institute of turning the
statistics "around to make it appear that three-strikes is ineffective."

Career criminals in prison longer

In his report, Jones said that in the five years since three-strikes was
enacted, fewer crimes were being committed, and fewer new inmates were going
to prison while more career criminals remained behind bars longer.

"Three strikes has revolutionized the way we combat crime in this country,"
Jones said. "By closing the revolving prison door, we have created an
effective deterrent to crime that has helped reduce the crime rate in
California by 38 percent in just five years."

Jones said "three strikes" had prevented more than a million crimes, saving
the state and its residents $21.7 billion. He said he would fight any effort
to modify the law.

"There's been no equivalent five-year period in the history of California
where we've seen this dramatic a reduction in crime," Jones said. "The
message of deterrence to the repeat criminals has gotten through."

California's homicide rate has dropped 51 percent from 1994 to 1998. In San
Francisco, the homicide rate last year was at its lowest level since 1965.
Jones attributes the crime reduction to the three- strikes.

But Macallair and other criminologists said that robust economic growth,
demographic changes and a decline in the popularity of crack cocaine had
driven the state's decrease in crime.

Law needs amending

The institute said its findings suggested a need to consider repealing or
amending the law or conducting a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis.

"It was a major piece of legislation that was passed with no debate,"
Macallair said. "It was bad legislation - almost everyone agrees on that.
But no one has ever taken it on before. . . . People are talking about it
now, but I'm not sure it's going to happen."

The three-strikes law was overwhelmingly passed by the Legislature in 1994,
signed on an emergency basis by former Gov. Pete Wilson and ratified by the
state's voters by a 72 percent to 28 percent.

The Supreme Court left it intact in January, rejecting an appeal by a
shoplifter. Four of the nine justices, however, voiced concerns about its
constitutionality.

State Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles, has introduced a bill to require a
third strike be a violent or serious felony. Two-thirds majority in both
houses is required to amend the voter initiative. A similar bill by
then-state Sen. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, failed in the state Senate in 1997.

A conservative lawmaker has introduced legislation calling for a study on
the impact of three-strikes. Assemblyman Scott Baugh, R- Huntington Beach,
told the Riverside Press-Enterprise: "Do we want to fill our prisons up with
drug addicts spending the rest of their life in prison long after they've
kicked their drug habit?"