Study Challenges Effect of 3 Strikes

Law: Crime has fallen more in states without new, tougher
sentencing, an advocacy group says.

By GREG KRIKORIAN, Times Staff Writer

On the third anniversary of California's landmark
threestrikes law, a new study suggests that the measure and
similar laws in other states have not reduced crime.
The report by the Washingtonbased Justice Policy
Institute, a leftleaning organization, found that states that have
not enacted harsher prison sentences for repeat felons have
actually experienced a slightly greater drop in crime than states
that do have such laws.
The study counters assertions made by many politicians
and law enforcement advocates that longer prison sentences
for repeat criminals have made the streets safer. It is the latest
in a series of studies that underscore the profound
disagreement over whether the threestrikes concept reduces
crime. The debate is further complicated by the nation's
shrinking crime rate and widespread uncertainty about the root
cause of that trend.
"Basically, [the study] says the early statistics about three
strikes are inconclusive at best and disappointing at worst,"
said Vincent Schiraldi, coauthor of the report and director of
the institute.
But California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, a strong supporter
of the law, disputed the study's findings as faulty. And some
criminal justice experts said the report's conclusions are no
more reliable than those previously offered by proponents of
the law.
For its analysis, the institutea project of the nonprofit
Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justicecompared the crime
rates for 1994 and 1995 in the 13 states that adopted
threestrikes laws in 1993 or 1994 and the remainder that did
not have such legislation.
It found that in both violent and nonviolent crime, states that
did not have threestrikes statutes had more dramatic drops in
crime than states that had such laws.
Violent crime fell by 4.6% in states that do not have
threestrikes laws, compared with the 1.7% decline for states
that do have those laws.
In California, which has imposed tougher prison sentences
for more than 15,000 inmates since the law took effect three
years ago today, the decline in violent crime from 1994 to
1995 was 4.2% and the overall decline in crime was slightly
higher, at 5%.
The report noted that New York, which does not have a
threestrikes law, recorded a 13% decline in violent crime and
a 10.2% decrease in all crime. Most of that decline is
attributed to a sharp decrease in reported crime in New York
City, which reached its lowest level in a quartercentury.
The report, Schiraldi said, shows that "so far, three strikes
is not helping to reduce crime. . . . People shouldn't make
grandiose conclusions about it reducing crime based on one or
two years' data . . . because these numbers show all the
proclamations about its impact have been excessive."
Schiraldi was particularly critical of Lungren, who has often
praised the law as being pivotal in reducing the state's crime
rate.
"I think he has gotten way out ahead of himself on this data
and he should apologize to the people of California because he
has a special responsibility as attorney general . . . to tell
citizens what is happening with crime and why."
The Rand Corp.'s Peter Greenwood said the latest report is
"an antidote to the Dan Lungren argument that crime is down,
therefore three strikes is working."
But Lungren dismissed the report, saying in a statement
prepared by his office in Sacramento: "Mr. Schiraldi attempts
to disapprove facts that are otherwise readily understood by
the average citizen. And that is that longer prison sentences for
career criminals lead to safer communities."
Frank Zimring, professor of law at UC Berkeley's Boalt
Hall, said that while the study is based on "statistically gross"
comparisons, it nonetheless deflates "a very vulnerable balloon.
It says you cannot make a convincing case . . . from existing
statistical analysis that three strikes is a silver bullet reducing
crime."
Like Greenwood, Zimring said the report underscores the
need for a comprehensive analysis of how threestrikes laws
are affecting crime rates and prison populations nationwide.
"Nobody has done that good qualitative analysis," said
Zimring, "One side is saying, 'Look, the crime rate has
dropped after this law' and other people are saying, 'Look, the
crime rate is even lower in New York so it couldn't have been
that helpful.' So what it becomes is sort of a playground
argument, a 'my daddy can beat up your daddy.' And what is
absent is analysis of what the law has done."

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