Three Strikes and You’re Broke

In the early 1990s, after a plague of urban crime, many states passed the famous “three strikes and you’re out” laws – imposing a life sentence upon the third felony conviction, a penalty assessed against seemingly incorrigible, habitual criminals. The press is filled with stories of felons, committing less serious felonies (often non-violent or fairly limited violence, like a punch or a hit), finding themselves without hope, incarcerated for life.

The Los Angeles Times (August 10^th) noted that in Seattle, WA, Stevan Dozier was 25 when he punched a woman in the face to snatch her purse to feed a coke habit. Two more convictions (the second and third strike) for the same crime led him to a life sentence without the possibility of parole. In January, he observed, “My sentence is the same as the Green River killer's. . . . And other people who have viciously murdered and raped women and children are getting out of prison while I never will…” Lucky for Dozier, the governor granted him clemency in a program where Washington State is reviewing persons convicted under the three-strike laws to make sure such tough justice is clearly justified.

With overcrowding creating horrific conditions, as the August 8^th riot at the California Institute for Men at Chino – a medium security penitentiary housing 5,900 prisoners – proves. 175 prisoners were injured, and a dormitory was burned. Another piece in the Times notes that: “California has 158,000 prisoners in facilities designed for 84,000. A special three-judge federal court [in the first week in August] ordered the state to reduce its prison population by nearly 43,000 over the next two years to bring conditions up to constitutional standards.”

State budgets are hemorrhaging red ink as this managed depression tears at property, sales and income taxes. Housing prisoners, an annual costs ranging from $25,000 to $40,000 per year per prisoner, is a cost that requires serious reassessment, particularly since prisons seem to be nothing more than criminal institutions of higher learning in a country with 5% of the earth’s population and 25% of its incarcerated prisoners.

Which brings us back to the “popular” legislation – the three-strikes laws – that may have outlived its usefulness. The Times: “Fifteen years after voters and legislatures across the country began embracing the three-strikes concept, many states apply those laws more sparingly. Prosecutors and judges often use the discretion provided them to avoid charging a defendant whose past consists of minor robberies or assault convictions with a third-strike offense.
… Now Washington is taking the extra step of reviewing the cases of some nonviolent three-strikes prisoners and moving to release those, like Dozier, who probably would not face such a severe punishment today.”

In the end, the popular notion was that a specific number of convictions yielded a linear and predictable result. Take the discretion out of the hands of those soft prosecutors and judges. Okay, there were variations on a theme: “In California, where the law is less harsh than in Washington, two-strikers get a doubled penalty, and three-strikers face 25 years to life, with parole. More than 40,800 of the state's 170,000 inmates are behind bars under second- or third-strike provisions, with more than 8,400 of them sentenced to the full 25 years to life.” Still, can we really afford to have an automatic triggering mechanism filling our overcrowded prisons with people with increasingly longer sentences? We just do not have the money to do that anymore.

So what were the people saying when they championed this harsh legislation? That incorrigible and habitual criminals should not be turned back onto the streets to continue their criminal activity? So perhaps a specific hearing added to the trial of a repeat offender, a separately prosecuted charge, requiring proof of additional danger to society by reason of incorrigible and repetitive criminal activity, should be a precursor to a lengthy additional sentence. Not an automatic trigger, but a reasoned response… maybe accompanied with an automatic review after a specified period determined by the court. After all, senior citizens may have an entirely different perspective than that of a hardened gang-banger in his or her early twenties.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.