ENVIRONMENT AND CRIME -- MAJOR ISSUES

Tougher On Criminals Than Prosecutors Were; 3-Strikes Law Proved It

SACRAMENTO -- In the middle of a nearly hysterical anti-crime
atmosphere brought about by the slaying of 12-year-old Polly Klaas,
Gov. Pete Wilson was asked to back a tough new sentencing law
supported by prosecutors. Wilson rejected the bill.

Instead, he came out in favor of an even more rigid and harsh measure,
the "three strikes and you're out" proposal backed by victims'
advocate Mike Reynolds that eventually became law.

Wilson's choice four years ago symbolizes the crime policy he followed
throughout his eight years as governor: support for the most severe
punishment possible, even measures considered too extreme by law
enforcement officials.

Prosecutors worried in 1994 that the Reynolds version of three strikes
would be unfair and expensive. In many cases, the three-strikes law
that Wilson signed doesn't distinguish between violent and nonviolent
felons, requiring the same long sentences for both types of repeat
criminal. But Wilson said the law has been a huge success.

"The most significant thing has been that we've been successful in
isolating the recidivists and keeping them away from the public
through three strikes," he said in a recent interview.

Together, Wilson said, his policies add up to a safer California: Crime is
down
to a 30-year low, guns sales have dropped and more parolees are leaving the
state for other regions.

Between 1994 and 1997, homicides in California dropped by 40 percent
and during that same period, gun sales declined by 50 percent.

"And what I think that says is that people have begun feeling safer,"
he said.

Critics, however, say Wilson's policies have been shortsighted because
he has ignored far less expensive ways of preventing and punishing
crime. The governor, they charge, has left the state with a bulging
prisons budget and a potential prison construction crisis.

A nationwide trend

California's declining crime rate is part of a national
trend.

"Crime is down and down by a substantial proportion in California,
that's the good news," said Frank Zimring, a law professor at the
University of California Berkeley. "But the bad news for Wilson is
that crime is down in a lot of places."

The decline in California's crime rate has been matched and even
exceeded in places like New York, which didn't pass lengthy sentencing
laws like three strikes.

Criminal justice experts say Wilson's lock-'em-up policies deserve
only partial credit for making the state safer.

The improved economy, the addition of police officers brought about by
President Clinton's initiative, better policing methods and the
reduction of the percentage of men in the crime-prone years have all
contributed. On top of that, friendlier relations among drug dealers
have helped, said Peter Greenwood, director of the Criminal Justice
Program at RAND Corp., a nonprofit policy development and research
institution.

Much of the increase in crime in the 1980s in California stemmed from
violent clashes over control of drug sales by rival gangs, he said.

Greenwood is currently conducting a study on the effect of three
strikes, which doubled the sentences of those convicted of a serious
and violent felony and imposed a 25-year to life sentence on offenders
with two prior serious convictions.

"Three strikes gets some of the credit," he said. "How much I'm not
prepared to say." Zimring argues that until three strikes has been in
effect for a few more years it will be impossible to tell its effect
on crime because many criminals being sentenced under the law would
have gone to prison anyway.

Under three strikes, those prisoners will stay in custody
longer.

In addition, Zimring points out that the three-strikes law has been
implemented differently in each county. San Diego, for example,
prosecutes the three-strikes law frequently, while San Francisco
rarely uses the law. Yet, crime is down in both counties.

Supporters of the three-strikes law say it has deterred criminals from
plying their trade in California by giving parolees an incentive to
leave. Now more parolees leave the state than enter, a reversal of
past trends. Three strikes is just one of dozens of tough-on-crime
policies turned into law by Wilson.

When he took office in 1991, Wilson said that he found California's
laws to be "absurdly lenient."

During the past eight years, Wilson has changed that by signing laws
that impose far longer sentences on burglars, murderers, rapists and
even petty thieves.

He has taken away prisoner privileges like weight rooms and conjugal
visits, signed a law that chemically castrates repeat molesters and
even silenced prisoners by banning inmate interviews with the press.

Wilson was so committed to speeding up executions that he set aside
his antipathy toward criminal defense attorneys and granted those who
would represent Death Row inmates a 67 percent pay increase.

Wilson said his aim was to "make sure that before long, old age will
no longer be the leading cause of death among Death Row inmates."

Even Wilson acknowledges that his criminal justice policies have been
costly.

When he took office in 1991, the Department of Corrections budget was
$2.3 billion. This year the department will spend $4 billion.

During Wilson's tenure, the state prison population grew by more than
59,000 -- the equivalent of locking up all the residents of Encinitas.
In 1991, the state housed 101,000 convicts. Now it provides shelter
to 160,000 inmates.

Over the next 10 years, the Legislative Analyst's Office predicts that
the state will face a prison construction crisis. California, the
office calculates, will need to build 14 new prisons to take care of
the additional 70,000 inmates that will be locked up as a result of
Wilson's law-and-order policies.

Prison system scandal

The prison system has been rocked by scandals.

Last month, a state panel concluded that two dozen fatal shootings of
prisoners were not justified. In many instances, guards shot and
killed inmates engaged in fistfights.

Some guards have been accused of arranging "gladiator" style fights
among prisoners at Corcoran prison in the San Joaquin Valley.

"The price has been far too high," said state Sen. John Vasconcellos,
D-San Jose. "The system is a disgrace. It's a moral nightmare."

Vasconcellos and other critics say Wilson's tough-on-crime policies
have been unnecessarily expensive because they sent many nonviolent
criminals to expensive terms in state prisons.

Many groups, even some conservatives, argued that nonviolent offenders
should be sent to community correctional centers that are less harsh
and less costly than state prison.

Residential burglary, for example, is among the crimes that trigger
the long state prison sentences imposed by three strikes.

Under three strikes, someone with two felony burglary convictions and
one felony forgery conviction can be sentenced to life in prison, the
same sentence that a first-degree murderer gets.

Critics also accuse Wilson of ignoring prevention.

Vasconcellos said that Wilson repeatedly resisted efforts to expand
pilot programs that had proved effective at reducing the recidivism
rate among prisoners by preparing them for life on the outside. And
that he didn't provide enough money for drug rehabilitation.

"People come out of the system less equipped and more enraged than
they went in," Vasconcellos said.

Wilson, however, said he focused on prevention by trying to improve
health care and the education system for young children and by
stiffening domestic violence laws and encouraging mentoring.

The governor hopes that a research program funded mostly by the state
at UC San Francisco will one day result in a chemical that blocks
alcohol addiction.

"If they can do that, they can change the world," he
said.

In the meantime, Wilson said, failing to spend money on prisons is
more expensive than putting tax dollars into the system.

"Nobody likes to spend money on prisons ... ," he said. "But it is an
essential."

Despite their disagreement with the governor four years ago on which
version of the three-strikes law to enact, many district attorneys
remain strong supporters of the governor.

San Diego County District Attorney Paul Pfingst said Wilson's
contribution to public safety was substantial.

"If results mean anything," he said, "then Pete Wilson should have the
thanks of the people of the state of California for the reduction of
crime on his watch."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry