REGARDING THE SEPT. 30 EDITORIAL "NO ON PROP. 66":

Crime was falling two years before three strikes was ever enacted. Many
states without a three-strikes law have enjoyed the same drop in crime as
California.

California incarcerates more people under our three-strikes law than most
other states combined.

The legislative analyst estimates that under Proposition 66, "net savings
of potentially several tens of millions of dollars annually, increasing to
several hundred million dollars annually, primarily to the prison system"
due to shorter sentences for non-violent offenders. This could be much
more, as our prison system currently operates at 200 percent capacity, and
just to bring us to 100 percent would mean spending $25 billion on new prisons.

And why would our jails be full to overflowing when crime has dropped so
dramatically? California has the largest and most wasteful prison system in
the nation, still under threat of takeover by a federal judge. Our prison
system has overspent its budget in the last five years by $1.6 billion. If
you include second and third strikers in prison under this law, there are
42,000 inmates. Nearly two-thirds were convicted of nonviolent crimes. That
is over 25 percent of the entire prison population.

The Union-Tribune should applaud Proposition 66 as a means to reform a very
broken and wasteful system.

FRANCIS COURSER

Escondido