California's three-strikes law will take a big bite out of crime--if fully implemented--but the price will be staggering, a RAND study estimates. Less sweeping alternatives could cut violent crime almost as much at a far lower cost. Other states considering similar legislation may want to take heed."Three strikes and we're broke" is how one newspaper summed up the findings of a RAND study of California's sweeping year-old anticrime law, which mandates 25-year-to-life sentences for three-time offenders. The headline's hyperbole was understandable. The study did indeed find that although the "three-strikes" law might reduce serious crime in the state by 25 percent, the price tag would be enormous--on the order of $5.5 billion annually, or $300 per taxpayer.
Most of that increase would go for building and operating additional prisons to house an inmate population expected to double as a result of the bill's tougher sentences.
But fully funding the law's costs is unlikely, the research team concluded, because it would require either raising taxes sharply or gutting the budgets for higher education, environmental cleanup and other programs that Californians hold dear. "Clearly, something's got to give," they write, "and it may be the `three-strikes' law itself."
RAND's warning was ignored in California's November election. Voters--frightened by a perceived rise in violent crime and disinclined to count costs--passed a ballot initiative ratifying the three-strikes law, effectively locking it in. The law, which has been on the books since early last year, now cannot be overturned or amended without a two-thirds vote of the legislature.
But others may want to heed the study's warning. Bills similar to three strikes are under active consideration in more than 30 other states, and the Republicans' Contract with America proposes to give $10.5 billion to the states to help build prisons for the rising number of felons sentenced under the new laws.
"The public embraces 'get tough' laws out of fear, as the solution to violence," observes Peter W. Greenwood, leader of the seven-member interdisciplinary team that conducted the study. "But, dollar for dollar, they are not as effective in reducing violent crime as more targeted laws. They cast too wide a net and catch a lot of little fish--nonviolent offenders and older felons who no longer pose much threat to society but who are going to spend the rest of their lives in prison getting geriatric care at the state's expense."
The team used a sophisticated computer model to estimate how many crimes would be committed by both habitual and infrequent offenders. Consistent with recent reviews of the deterrence literature, the analysis did not assume that the tough provisions of three strikes would deter any crimes. Instead, crime would be reduced simply because more criminals would be in prison longer.
To achieve the reduction in crime projected by RAND, three strikes would have to be implemented as written. About one-third of the felonies eliminated by full implementation would be violent crimes such as murder, rape, and assaults causing great bodily harm. The other two-thirds would be less violent but still serious felonies, including less injurious assaults, robberies, and burglaries of residences.
Because the intent of the three-strikes law is to lock up repeat offenders longer, most of the extra costs would be incurred in the construction and operation of additional prisons. Some police-related costs may be saved in not having to deal so often with such offenders once they are locked up, but greater prison costs would overwhelm such savings, the study said.
"This has an interesting implication," the study notes. "Only 15 percent of the new law's crime reduction effect will come from its most publicized provision--the third strike."
Applying the law's penalties only to violent felons would save one-half of its cost and still retain two-thirds of its effectiveness.
But cost-effectiveness is not necessarily the most important criterion. To some people, a reduction in serious crime on the order of 25 percent would be attractive no matter what the cost. However, it seems unlikely that anyone would want to pay more for that reduction than they have to. In this context, the guaranteed full-term alternative could be of interest, for it would be just as effective as the new law in terms of serious crime reduction, yet cost $1 billion a year less.
The advantages of this alternative point up the shortcomings of the new law: The full-term alternative would increase sentences for all serious offenders--including first timers who are near the beginning of their criminal careers--and pay for it by not imprisoning many minor felons. Three strikes, in contrast, ignores first-time serious offenders and instead expends a large amount of money keeping older criminals--including many convicted of minor offenses--locked up well past the time when they might have given up crime anyway.