`3 Strikes' Laws Have Struck Out Elsewhere -- Other States See No Drop In Crime

The proposed "Three Strikes, You're Out" law is aimed at reducing crime in Washington state, but officials in states with similar laws say that hasn't happened where they live.

A study showed no drop in crime in Florida since prosecutors revved up their use of the state's habitual-criminal law in 1987. And in the Chicago area, a prosecutor said linking such laws to a lower crime rate was wishful thinking.

The Three Strikes law wouldn't reduce crime because the number of people who would qualify would be small, predicts James Austin, executive vice president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and advocacy group based in San Francisco. It is the nation's oldest criminal-justice research organization.

"It's extremely rare to find people convicted three times of those kinds of crimes," Austin said of the measure's reach.

The Three Strikes measure, Initiative 593, would add more than 40 crimes - from murder and rape to some robberies - to the list of offenses requiring life-without-parole sentences after a third felony conviction. The only way to escape serving life in prison would be to petition the governor for clemency.

The crime council recently completed a study of the crime rate in Florida, which has a habitual-criminal law. Although it differs from Washington's proposed law in several respects, Florida's law had the same aim of locking up the worst bad guys.

"Even taking into account population growth, the crime rate per 100,000 population has remained essentially unchanged, with a significant 16 percent increase in the violent crime rate," the study found.

The study, which examined the backgrounds of the 47,000 inmates incarcerated in Florida as of February 1993, also found that the decision to prosecute under the habitual-offender law was "based on race and nothing but race," Austin said. "Blacks had a rate of it being applied twice that of whites."

More often than not, prosecutors used habitual-criminal laws to force plea bargains rather than to send people to prison for life, says Austin.

Unlike Florida, where it's up to the prosecutor whether the habitual-criminal law will be used, Washington's proposed law would apply automatically upon a third conviction for a qualifying crime.

But Austin noted that even under that provision, Washington prosecutors would still have the option to use the law as leverage to force a guilty plea to a lesser charge and avoid trial.

The Florida law does not call for life in prison without parole but takes away an inmate's good-time credit.

Prosecutors and prison officials in other states, including Arizona, Illinois and Maryland, generally said their habitual-criminal laws were seldom invoked or had no effect on the crime rate.

Illinois' law is most similar to the Three Strikes proposal, though it includes only a quarter as many offenses.

Nic Howell, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Corrections, said only 88 offenders have been incarcerated under the state's 15-year-old habitual-offender law.

A prosecutor in Cook County, which includes Chicago, said it's wishful thinking to believe such laws affect the crime rate.

The law is rarely used, added Wayne Meyer, a felony trial supervisor in the Cook County State's Attorney's office. He likes it, though, because it takes sentencing discretion away from liberal judges.

One byproduct of the law, he observed, is an increased number of petitions to the governor for executive clemency.

An Illinois prison official, who asked to remain anonymous, said the law is no deterrent, noting that Illinois' prison population has jumped from 6,000 in 1973 to 33,800 today.

In Maryland, it takes a fourth felony conviction for prosecutors to use the state's 1975 habitual-criminal law, and it doesn't apply automatically.

Baltimore County is probably the most aggressive user of the law, said Howard Merker, a deputy district attorney there.

"The criminal milieu know that if they're a three-time loser not to do it (commit a fourth offense) in Baltimore County, because we've got the reputation of going after everyone who meets the criteria," Merker said. "So hopefully a lot of these people don't commit them in our jurisdiction."

Even so, Merker admitted he couldn't claim a reduction in the crime rate under Maryland's habitual-offender law.

To support their contention that the initiative's passage would reduce violent crime, backers point to studies showing that hardened, habitual criminals can be one-person crime waves.

They cite, for example, a survey in a 1987 Department of Justice journal reporting on inmates in three states who averaged between 187 and 287 crimes a year, not counting drug deals. Ten percent of the inmates each committed more than 600 crimes annually, the study found.

But the methodologies of such studies have been attacked as "voodoo criminology" by Austin's group.

Austin said the notion that a small percentage of offenders commit most crimes is "one of the great myths of the crime situation." The logical conclusion of that theory, he said, was "we should have eliminated all crime" by now.

Yet, he notes, violent crime hasn't decreased and prison populations continue to rise.

Dave LaCourse, the Three Strikes initiative's primary author, says it will stop some crime.

"The fact is, not even our opponents will say that no crimes will be prevented if Three Strikes becomes law," LaCourse said.

He also noted that a 1992 Washington Post article by a senior editor for Reader's Digest reported on the experience of three states - Michigan, California and Texas - showing that building more prisons cut crime.

"Increasing the expected amount of punishment in those examples led to a reduction of the crime rate," LaCourse said. "Why wouldn't it work on the habitual criminal?"

King County Councilman Kent Pullen, who favors the initiative, champions the deterrent factor.

"Many hardened criminals are pretty smart . . . Many do know the law (and) will leave the state," he predicted.

But some ex-cons who have gone straight scoff at the proposed law's alleged deterrent power.

Among them is Seattle resident Glenn Williams. Now 78, Williams said he was declared a habitual criminal when he was only 21 for repeated convictions for joy riding.

Williams, who also served 11 years in federal prisons for crimes including bank robbery, later received a presidential pardon and was invited to the White House by President Reagan in recognition of his volunteer work on behalf of convicts and their families.

"If a bank robber was told he was going to get 175 years and a $990,000 fine, it would not stop him from robbing a bank tomorrow morning," Williams said. At the time they commit their crimes, criminals are the least concerned with what society has in mind for them by way of punishment, Williams said.

Paul Levine, a lawyer with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Washington, D.C., agrees with Williams.

Levine says the more he's studied the issue, the more convinced he is that "the deterrence rationale is entirely empty."

Levine noted, for example, that studies have shown the death penalty has had no impact on homicide rates in neighboring states with and without capital punishment. ------------------------------------------------------------------- `Three Strikes, You're Out'

Under Initiative 593, the "Three Strikes, You're Out" measure, more than 40 crimes would be added to the list of offenses that would send three-time lawbreakers to prison for life, without the possibility of parole.

It affects offenders with two strikes - people convicted of qualifying crimes on two separate, previous occasions - who subsequently are convicted of a third qualifying offense.

The initiative is on the November ballot. If it passes, it would take effect Dec. 2.

Among the crimes covered by the initiative are: first- and second-degree murder; first-degree arson and first-degree attempted arson; first- and second-degree child molestation; homicide by abuse; first-, second- and third-degree rape; first-degree extortion; vehicular assault; vehicular homicide; and first-and second-degree robbery.