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SELECTED STUDIES

In a November 23, 2008 editorial, Legislature, governor must find $5 billion in spending cuts without raising taxes, Seattle Times editors suggest that, to help close the projected revenue gap, Washington state "...could repeal the "three strikes" law and parole some prisoners convicted under that law." The research cited below supports that editorial position. Public safety can be increased at less cost without 3-Strikes.

In a December 26, 2008 editorial, Periodic Review of Three Strikes Law is Prudent, Yakima Herald editors comment on the need for discretion in Three Strikes sentences as, "the automatic lifer aspect is not to be taken lightly." They point out that a long standard sentence for a serious crime that avoids costly appeals (and also avoids warehousing elderly people who pose no public safety risk but incur significant medical costs associated with age) can be a more prudent choice. Three Strikes "is a concept that still needs periodic review by the Legislature to make sure it is judiciously applied, and with discretion when warranted." In the case reviewed by the editors the judge took Three Strikes "off the table" because of a due process issue. The law provides no discretion for judges, however, in almost all cases in which a prosecutor seeks a Three Strikes sentence.

  1. Beres, L., Griffith, T. (1998). Do three strikes laws make sense? Habitual offender statutes and criminal incapacitation. Georgetown Law Journal, 87 (1): 103-138.
    Analyzes the relationship between incapacitation and the crime rate and finds that there is no evidence that it is possible to predict which defendants are likely to commit serious offenses in the future at a level of accuracy that is ethically or fiscally defensible.
  2. Chen, Elsa Y. Impacts of "Three Strikes and You're Out" on Crime Trends in California and Throughout the United States. Santa Clara University. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 2008.
    Reviews and summarizes the prior literature and examines the effects of Three Strikes on crime in California and throughout the nation using state-level data for all 50 states from 1986 to 2005 measuring both deterrence and incapacitation effects, and controlling for preexisting crime trends and economic, demographic, and policy factors. The presence of a Three Strikes law appears to be associated with slightly but significantly faster rates of decline in robbery (3%), burglary (1.8%), larceny (1.1%), and motor vehicle theft (2%) .. but a 10-12.9% slower decline in murder rates ..." The modest decline in some crime rates may be attributable to other causes. The effects on crime in California, which where approximately 100,000 people are serving under Three Strikes are "mostly undetectable" and not different from the effects measurable in states, such as Washington, with many fewer Three Strikes convictions. The author cites "tremendous monetary and social costs" and concludes that "the toughest sentencing policy is not necessarily the most effective option."
  3. Helland, Eric and Tabarrak, Alex. "Does Three Strikes Deter? A Non-Parametric Estimation, Journal of Human Resources , 22: 309-330, 2007.
    Compares the post-sentencing criminal activity of people convicted in California of a second strikeable offense with those who were tried for a second strikeable offense but convicted of a non-strikeable offense. The study concludes that California's three strike legislation has a significant deterrance effect, reducing felony arrest rates among people with two strikes by 17-20 percent. The authors ask if 3-Strikes in California is cost effective relative to other ways of reducing crime. They estimate the cost of third strike incarcerations in California as $4.6 billion and cite recent studies estimating that $4.6 billion of new police hiring could reduce national crime by around one million crimes, far in excess of the total estimated crime reduction in California due to three strikes... Alternatively we could imagine holding prison costs constant but reallocating from old to young prisoners. Since crime rates decline with age, imprisoning two twenty year olds for ten years each may create more crime reduction than imprisoning one forty year old for twenty years."
  4. Iyengar, Radha. "I'd rather be Hanged for a Sheep than a Lamb: The Unintended Consequences of 'Three-Strikes' Laws." National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 13784, February, 2008
    Strong sentences are common "tough on crime" tool used to reduce the incentives for individuals to participate in criminal activity. However, the design of such policies often ignores other margins along which individuals interested in participating in crime may adjust. I use California's Three Strikes law to identify several effects of a large increase in the penalty for a broad set of crimes. Using criminal records data, I estimate that Three Strikes reduced participation in criminal activity by 20 percent for second-strike eligible offenders and a 28 percent decline for third-strike eligible offenders. However, I find two unintended consequences of the law. First, because Three Strikes flattened the penalty gradient with respect to severity, criminals were more likely to commit more violent crimes. Among third-strike eligible offenders, the probability of committing violent crimes increased by 9 percentage points. Second, because California's law was more harsh than the laws of other nearby states, Three Strikes had a "beggar-thy-neighbor" effect increasing the migration of criminals with second and third-strike eligibility to commit crimes in neighboring states.
  5. Johnson, L. Jeffry, Michelle A. Saint-Germain. "Officer Down: Implications of Three Strikes for Public Safety." Criminal Justice Policy Review. Vol. 16 p. 443, 2005
    The authors evaluated data collected from six major police agencies and district attorney offices in California between 1990 and 2001, including total arrests, resisting arrest charges, assault on peace officer, officer injuries or deaths, use of force incidents, officer-involved shootings, vehicle pursuits, and three-strikes case filings. The resulting analysis did not evidence a statewide increase or trend. However, in the Los Angeles area, where there was a higher concentration of repeat offenders and three-strikes prosecutions were more actively pursued, there was a notable increase in arrest rates, resisting and assaulting officers, and significant increase (113% between 1996 and 2001) in two and three strikes crimes with a police officer victim.
  6. Kovandzic, Tomislav V; John J Sloan III, Lynne M Vieraitis. ""STRIKING OUT" AS CRIME REDUCTION POLICY: THE IMPACT OF "THREE STRIKES" LAWS ON CRIME RATES IN U.S. CITIES. " Justice Quarterly : JQ 21.2 (2004): 207-239.
    Summarizes several studies showing that homicide rates have declined at a 10-12% slower rate in jurisdictions with 3-Strikes laws.
  7. Marvell, T., Moody, C. (2001). The lethal effects of three strikes law. Journal of Legal Studies, 30 (1): 89-106.
    Finds that Three Strikes laws have had a minimal impact on reducing the levels of crime and through deterrence or incapacitation but that they are associated with 10%-12% more homicides in the short run and 23%-29% more in the long run in almost all 24 states examined with Three Strikes laws.
  8. Moody, Carlisle E., Thomas B. Marvell, Robert J. Kaminski. "Unintended Consequences: Three-Strikes Laws and the Murders of Police Officers", National Institute of Justice, 01/11/2002.
    "Twenty-four States enacted (Three Strikes) laws that went into effect during a period of 25 months, between December 1993 and January 1996. The few studies that have explored the question of deterrence find that the laws have neither reduced crime nor increased prison population. The theoretical exploration of criminals' reactions to the laws is more complex. Criminals might try to reduce expected costs by taking evasive actions, such as moving to other jurisdictions, switching to crimes that involve less risk of apprehension, and bribing police. This study explored the fact that criminals that believe that they face three-strikes penalties might murder police in order to escape arrest. The dataset was a pooled time series and cross section of 50 States for the period of 1973 to 1998. The dependent variable was the number of law enforcement officers feloniously killed in the line of duty. The target variable was a dummy variable that took the unit value in years following the passage of a three-strikes law. The results show an estimated impact of 44 percent more murders in years following the laws. In the average state there were 1.2 police murders per year in the 1990's; so the typical three-strikes law led to an additional police murder roughly every other year. This means that approximately 0.0006 percent of arrests for major violent crimes in three-strike States involve police murders that would not have occurred without the laws. Several other criminal justice policies that might affect police murders were evaluated by the pooled regression model. Laws requiring sentencing enhancements for crimes committed with firearms appear to reduce police killings by roughly 18 percent. The size of the prison population, the number of executions, and the presence of right-to-carry concealed weapons have no discernible impact."
  9. Stolzenberg, L., D'Alessio, S. (1997). "Three strikes and you're out": The impact of California's new mandatory sentencing law on serious crime rates. Crime & Delinquency, 43 (4): 457-469.
    Examines the impact of California's Three Strikes law in the 10 largest cities within the state and concludes that that the "three strikes" law did not decrease serious crime or petty theft rates.
  10. Turner, Susan. (2000). Impact of Truth in Sentencing and Three-Strikes Legislation on Crime. Crime and Justice Atlas 2000, NCJRS, p.10-11. Available online: URL: www.usdoj.gov/ncjrs.
    Finds that, according to studies done by RAND, "three strikes" and "truth-in-sentencing" laws have had little impact on crime and arrest rates. In addition, UCR reports showed that states that did not have "three strikes" or "truth in sentencing" laws had lower index crime rates than those that had both types of "get-tough" laws.