A RECENT decision by the Supreme Court means that there may be a way to rid the University of the person making the bomb threats - send him to California, where the "three strikes" law may be repealed. This plan is foolproof now that the Supreme Court has decided to examine the constitutionality of California's Proposition 184, which imposes harsh penalties on felony offenders for a third violent act. The Unabomber - or whatever stupid names this wannabe is being called by the University community - won't have to worry about pesky laws threatening to put him in prison for life for multiple offenses. Instead, he can enjoy a life of sunny weather, smog, Hollywood and petty, gutless, disruptive crime.
It has been eight years since the controversial implementation of the three strikes law and the Supreme Court finally has agreed to examine its dubious merits. After an ex-con abducted and murdered a 12-year-old girl in California in 1994, public outrage forced the adoption of the law to keep dangerous people off the streets. The problem is that the law has done little to deter crime and serves only to overcrowd prisons, cost taxpayers and violate civil rights.
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Complete public ignorance about the real impact of the statute has allowed the law to exist for eight long years before Supreme Court review. Everybody was so quick to rush to action after the supposedly avoidable murder of an innocent girl by a career criminal, yet nobody examined the implications and effects of the three strikes law. The drop in crime that the law's proponents suggested has been exaggerated as the majority, 57.3 percent, of third strike cases involved non-violent offenders ("Aging Behind Bars," SentencingProject.org). On the upside, crime has gone down in California, in some part due to the state becoming one of the nation's leading exporters of criminals, because felons leave the state to avoid the rule. But California also is ranked last in the nation in migration, while other recent drastic reductions in crime in Washington, D.C., New York and Massachusetts all were recorded without any such rule (SentencingProject.org).
Not only does the rule fail to deter criminals, it also creates more costs than benefits to the public. The net gain in taking criminals off the streets is offset by the crowding of the prison system with aging criminals with long sentences. According to the Sentencing Project Web site, housing felons for 25 or more years costs $1.5 million and when thousands of non-violent offenders are being detained, the costs exceed the legal bills for the entire Dallas Cowboys football team. And it should be noted that there are a disproportionate number of minorities who commit non-violent crimes and are adversely affected by this rule. Offenders of violent crimes were the target of the law and they are not being affected quite so much as the petty criminal.
The most dangerous effect of the law is the potentially unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment it delivers. In 1997, a homeless man was sentenced to 25 to life for trying to pick a church lock because he hoped to find a generous priest who once had given him food. Three years later a man received a similar punishment for stealing $20 of instant coffee. While criminals who fail to learn social responsibility or suffer from utter stupidity do not deserve to walk the streets when they commit a crime, the Constitution outlines the principle that the punishment should fit the crime. Repetition of unlawful behavior should merit extra prison time, but 25 to life for stealing a slice of pizza?
A ridiculous aspect of the "three strikes" rule is that there is already an institution in place to deliver harsh punishments for career criminals and benefit public safety - the judge. Regardless of the dubious legality of such a law, the real problem is that it is a strict and intractable mandate which fails to weigh the mitigating circumstances of each case. In places where the harsh penalties are not in place, judges frequently sentence defendants to longer prison terms if a pattern of criminality without reform is seen.
The law either should be eliminated - giving the power of arbiter back to the judge - or it should be changed so that the third offense is more violent than petty theft of coffee and actually warrant harsh penalty. As it stands, the "three strikes" law is useless drivel produced solely to sate the public call for blood after a senseless crime. It isn't simply that the law is ineffective and counterproductive, but it delivers an unreasonably harsh punishment for petty criminals, failing to target murderers and rapists. Last year, a three strikes term was upheld by a California state court for a man who stole a cookie as his third offense. While the Cookie Monster would try to justify the death penalty for this egregious violation, few others can. Being tough on crime involves deterrence, not vindictiveness.
(Brad Cohen's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at bcohen@cavalierdaily.com.)
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