TWO STRIKES' COSTS ADD UP

Georgia Rep. Mike Snow, chairman of the House Public Safety Committee, says
the 2005 Legislature may consider changes in the state's "two strikes" law
to help solve prison overcrowding compounded by an ongoing state budget crisis.

The two, and three-strikes and you're in prison for life laws were passed
in the last decade by Georgia and two dozen other states. Their passage
reflected the public fears generated from rising crime rates and the
revolving door of justice that, it seemed, kept turning repeat offenders
back on the street to commit other felonies.

In Georgia, the law is that on the second violent offense, the perpetrator
must - not can, but must - be sentenced to life without parole. Most states
don't have the mandatory life sentence until the third violent felony, and
one, California, imposes a life sentence for a third felony of any kind.
Those parameters mean the state must lock away forever those who have
committed such non-violent crimes as forgeries, shoplifting or drug buys.
Their three-strikes convictions have swelled their prison population by
more than 42,000.

Georgia's mandatory life sentences number a little more than 7,600. The
state Department of Corrections estimates the cost of incarcerating each
inmate as $17,332 annually. Multiple that by each two-strikers' life span
and you can easily see the long-range budget implications of the get-tough
repeat offender law.

In addition to the budget implications, the Justice Policy Institute has
just released a national study that uses FBI crime statistics to show that
violent crimes and homicides declined faster in non-strike states between
1993 and 2002 than in states with three-strikes laws. The statistics do
prove that the overall crime index fell faster in states with three-strikes
laws (Georgia's stricter law is included in the study.)

While California's law may be too sweeping and too inclusive for life
sentences, Georgia's solons should proceed cautiously in trying to address
budget issues and jail overcrowding by weakening our law. While the state
must continually look for and be willing to fund alternative ways of
supervising non-violent offenders rather than throwing them into a very
expensive jail cell, the violent offenders, those who twice commit one of
the heinous crimes known as the seven deadly sins, need to stay behind bars.