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 In My Opinion
George Curry
Columnist Page
Friday, October 22, 2004; Page 23
Striking Out in California
The West Coast – or, the Left Coast, as some Californians like to call their area – has a bad habit of enacting bad laws that later spread virus-like to other states. Proposition 209, Ward Connerly’s California anti-affirmative ballot initiative, and the draconian “Three Strikes and You’re Out” are but two examples.
On Nov. 2nd, a decade after California’s “Three Strikes” went into effect, residents of the Golden State will get another turn at bat. If approved by voters, Proposition 66 will reform California’s Three Strikes sentencing law to require that a third strike, the one carrying a mandatory 25-years-to life prison sentence, be applied to only violent or serious felonies.
Six crimes will be downgraded: residential burglary (unless someone other than the burglar is at home at the time), attempted residential burglary; arson of a structure, forestland or property; criminal threats, felony gang crimes and felonies in which unintended great bodily harm is inflicted.
If Prop 66 passes, there will be no mass exodus from prison, as opponents like to charge. Rather, more than 26,000 felons will have their cases retroactively reviewed in court. If their old conviction was based on what will now be a lesser charge, they may be either released or given a shorter prison term.
If a recent Field Poll is accurate, it might not be difficult to pick malleable jurors. According to the poll, 76 percent of Californians want to reform Three Strikes. The poll, taken in August, shows clear majorities across the board supporting the change: Democrats and Republicans, men and women as well as liberals and conservatives. The strongest support is among liberals (80 percent) and weakest is among conservatives (59 percent).
Like federal mandatory sentencing guidelines, “Three Strikes” was hastily passed in the state legislature without a public hearing in response to a high-profile, rape and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma, California. Richard Allen Davis was later convicted of the crime.
To make sure that Davis and other incorrigibles are kept behind bars forever, the state legislature and a citizen ballot initiative, provided for “Three Strikes.” A new report from the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy organization that seeks alternatives to incarceration, found that African-Americans represent 6.5 percent of California’s population, nearly 30 percent of its prison population and 44.7 percent of those sentenced to life under the Three Strikes policy. Only 25 percent of Whites are “lifers” and 26 percent Latino.
“Three Strikes is systematically funneling African-American and Latino defendants into prison for longer and longer sentences, mostly for non-violent crimes,” Vincent Schiraldi, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute, says in a statement. “Rarely does one see any law imposed so disproportionately against one racial group.”
The report – “Racial Divide: An Examination of the Impact of California’s Three Strikes Law on African-Americans and Latinos” – noted that Blacks are arrested in California at 4.4 times the rate of Whites, imprisoned at 7.5 times the rate of Whites and are nearly 13 times more likely to be incarcerated than Whites under Three Strikes.
Where one lives in California also affects the likelihood of being charged under the Three Strikes law. In Santa Clara County, 414 were charged with violating the law. In the People’s Republic of San Francisco, just 32 persons were charged.
Interestingly, the law designed to reduce violent crime has largely been a failure.
“Three Strikes states have fared no better than states that did not adopt strike laws,” the report states. “Strike states had slightly better declines in index (serious) crime rates (26.8 percent) driven by slightly greater declines in property crime (25.9 percent vs. 20.4 percent). Non-strike states had marginally better declines in violent crime (34.3 percent vs. 33) and greater declines in homicides (43.9 percent vs. 38.2 percent).
“Considering that Three Strikes was a movement largely targeted at violent recalcitrant criminals, with promises of great impact, these findings are disappointing ten years after most strikes laws were enacted.”
In addition to being disappointing, the Three Strikes experiment has also been expensive. Correctional officials in California say it takes $31,000 a year to house each inmate. The Justice Policy Institute calculates that over the past decade, it has cost California taxpayers $6 billion to house the additional prisoners.
In 1993, the state of Washington passed the country’s first Thee Strikes law. Over the next few years, 23 states and the federal government passed similar laws. Now, it’s on the California ballot. If it is amended next month, this will be one California trend that other states should not balk at following.
George E. Curry is editor-in-chief of the NNPA News Service and BlackPressUSA.com. His most recent book is “The Best of Emerge Magazine,” an anthology published by Ballantine Books. Curry’s weekly radio commentary is syndicated by Capitol Radio News Service (301/588-1993). He can be reached through his Web site, georgecurry.com. |
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