receive 25 years to life in prison (the “third strike”).
Proposition 184 was introduced in the California State Legislature in March 1994 and passed into law the following November. The predictions from the “thug-hugging” lobby were many and dire.
Professors from Berkeley University and many of those in the criminal justice system claimed that the state’s prisons would be overflowing and the costs would skyrocket. It wasn’t fair, they said, it wasn’t democratic, but most of all, Californians were assured by the “experts” that it just wouldn’t work. Punishment is an archaic concept that is not a deterrent was the mantra of the day.
Well, here we are more than ten years later. What happened in California? Were the thug huggers correct in their claims that punishment is no deterrent? You be the judge.
The following are figures obtained directly from the California Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Information Service. They compare crime statistics over a tenyear period from 1992, some two years prior to the passage of the “three strikes” law until 2002, some eight years after the law was passed. The easiest to understand and the ones that are the most meaningful are those that compare the rate of various crime categories per 100,000 population:
•Total crimes dropped from 3,491.5 in 1992 to 1,890.1 in 2002—a reduction of 45.9 percent;
•Total violent crime, down from 1,103.9 in 1992 to
•589.2 in 2002, a reduction of 46.6 percent;
•Murder, dropped from 12.5 in 1992 to 8.8 in 2002, a reduction of 45.6 percent;
•Rape, down from 40.7 in 1992 to 28.8 in 2002, a reduction of 29.2 percent;
•Robbery, down from 418.1 in 1992 to 183.6 in 2002, a reduction of 56.1 percent;
•Assault, down from 1,300.9 in 1992 to 632.6 in 2002, a reduction of 45.5 percent;
•Burglary, down from 1,365.2 in 1992 to 672.6 in 2002, a reduction of 50.7 percent;
•Auto theft, down from 1,022.4 in 1992 to 628.3 in 2002, a reduction of 38.5 percent.
An examination of all the statistics reveals that never in history has California seen as dramatic a reduction in every crime category during a comparable time span. Amazingly enough, in 2002, California’s overall crime rates had fallen back to the levels seen in 1967. While concrete figures since 2003 are not available, preliminary studies indicate the crime rate continues to follow the same trend—downward.
As for predictions that California would have to build 20 new prisons to accommodate a doubling of the prison population as a result of the “three strikes” law, here are the facts:
California’s prison population ten years after the “three strikes” law had increased 25.5 percent, roughly mirroring the increase in the state’s population. Furthermore, the prison population stabilized at about 160,000 six years after passage of the law and remained that way for the next four years. Ten years prior to the “three strikes” law, California had to build 19 new prisons. During the ten years after passage of the law, no new prisons had to be built.
According to the California Department of Justice, in the ten years following the “three strikes” law, estimated financial savings to taxpayers of the state was $28.5 billion. Only two states, New York and Massachusetts, have better records of reducing crime over the same period. In both cases it was as a result of more police, more enforcement, tougher laws, and longer sentencing.
Despite the obvious overwhelming success of “three strikes” in California, some residents continue to attack the law, claiming, among other things, it is racist. Proposition 66, an initiative to soften “three strikes,” was presented in a referendum in 2004 but voted down. The bleeding hearts, the “experts,” and the thug huggers, it seems, just cannot accept the fact that their vision of the world doesn’t jibe with reality. The ordinary citizens of California, however, just as in New York, are not blinded by ideology and obviously know a good thing when they see it.
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