THE IMPACT OF '3 STRIKES' LAWS A DECADE LATER

Supporters Cite a Drop in Crime and Cost Savings, While Critics Note Other
Expenses and the Law's Harsh Nature.

California's "three strikes and you're out" law - the toughest
criminal-justice statute in the country - turns 10 years old this month.

The verdict on its impact remains mixed, at best. But one thing is clear:
The law that initially prompted international outrage by locking up people
for life for such seemingly petty crimes as stealing a spare tire, forging
a check, and making off with a handful of videos is not expected to be
repealed. And although there's a strong petition drive under way to get a
referendum on November's ballot to amend the law to apply only to violent
offenders, some doubt even that will pass.

The reason is that prosecutors, like Los Angeles's District Attorney Steve
Cooley, simply aren't implementing the law as it was written, but are
applying it instead as they believe it was intended. "The public was not
enamored of some of these bizarre, draconian sentences," he says. "So I
established a very clear policy that presumes if an offense is violent or
serious, we will pursue three strikes. If the new offense is not serious or
not violent, we won't."

Since California enacted its law, almost half the states and the federal
government have also passed similar legislation, but none are as harsh as
California's.

Still, it's the application of prosecutorial restraint that academics
credit with Californians' seeming acceptance of it after initial public
outcry. "Because it's not being implemented the way it was voted in, people
don't seem as upset about it. To me, that's the headline," says Jack Riley,
director of public safety and justice at the RAND Corp. in Santa Monica,
Calif. "The system has adjusted itself so the odds are lowered that there
will be the kind of extreme sentences that were initially associated with it."

Despite that, the controversy over the law and whether it's been an
unequaled success or a budget-busting disaster continues to rage on the
political front.

A Proven Deterrent?

For Bill Jones, who coauthored the bill as a state assemblyman and is now
running for the US Senate, this is a time to tout the success of three
strikes in locking up thousands of repeat offenders for good. A study he
coauthored claims it has saved California and potential victims $28 billion
by preventing 2 million would-be crimes. "There are tens of thousands of
fewer crime victims and thousands of individuals alive today due to this
vital law," he said in a statement marking the anniversary last weekend.
"The statistics tell the story. All crime is down in California,
particularly violent crime."

But critics note that crime has come down across the country over the past
decade, whether or not a state has a three-strikes law. In fact, states
without such laws, like New York, have had significantly greater drops in
violent crime over the past decade and lower growth rates in their prison
systems than California.

That pattern is consistent within California as well. A study done by the
Justice Policy Institute (JPI), a criminal-justice-reform think tank in
Washington, found that of California's largest 12 counties, those that used
three strikes the least had far greater declines in violent crime - than
counties using three strikes the most.

The report also blames California's burgeoning prison population in part on
the law, which also doubles sentences for second-time offenders. The study
found that "by June 2003, second and third strikers made up 27.2 percent of
the prison population, up from 3.5 percent in 1994." It estimated that the
increase cost the state an additional $8 billion.

The study also found that almost 60 percent of the third-strikers were in
for nonviolent offenses, most of them drug possession. In fact, there are
10 times as many third-strikers serving time for drug possession as for
second-degree murder.

Add to that the finding that African-Americans are 12 times as likely to
have three strikes applied to them as whites, and critics say the law has
proved to be draconian and inhumane. "The law costs too much, does too
little, and targets the wrong people," says JPI's Vincent Schiraldi, who
coauthored the report. "Those are outrageous racial disparities."

Crimes That Go Unchecked

The law's supporters argue those statistics are misleading. They point to
studies showing that for every crime someone's arrested for, many more go
unrecorded. "So you can be sure those three felonies don't represent the
sum total of that person's life of crime," says Heather MacDonald, a fellow
at the Manhattan Institute in New York, a conservative think tank. "[These
laws] are a vital tool for prosecutors to determine if a person is
incorrigible." She answers critics who call the law unfair: "If you don't
want to come under the aegis of the three-strikes law, don't commit your
third felony."

But to Sue Reams, who 10 years ago voted for the law but now is part of a
growing grass-roots movement to amend it, such analysis is simplistic and
misses the human element. She's quick to tell her son Shane's story to
drive the point home.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, he was a teenager struggling with a drug
addiction. To help him, she became a "tough love" parent. When she realized
he'd stolen from her home and her neighbor's, she reported him to the
police. As a result, he was convicted of two felonies for burglary. In
1996, two years after the law was passed, he was standing 30 feet away from
a friend selling crack. He was arrested and charged with aiding and
abetting a $30 sale of cocaine. He and his friend were both convicted. The
friend was given a four-year sentence and served two years of it. Shane was
given 25 years to life, because it was his third felony.

"I voted for the law. I helped send my son to prison when what he really
needed was drug treatment," says Ms. Reams. "That's how I feel now, and I
intend to get him a second chance."