Garrett Misleading the Public on Effectiveness of Three Strikes – says Rethinking Crime and Punishment

“David Garrett should stop claiming that the three strikes law in California single handedly reduced violent offences in California by 50%, “says Kim Workman, Director of Rethinking Crime and Punishment. “It is a misleading claim, and not based on evidence.”

Since the late 1980’s there has been a steady and significant crime drop across the United States and Canada. But that drop trended five years before the introduction of the “three strikes” laws. Were "three strikes" the cause of a significant part of the decline, the rate of decline should have increased around ten years after its passage. Instead, the rate of decline remained constant, and the causes of the decline that operated prior to three strikes continued to be the primary reason for the drop in crime rates.”

“Comparing California’s decline in crime with other states presents a different picture. New York, not California, showed the sharpest decline in crime during the time in question, and yet it along with 21 other states, did not not have three strikes legislation. Canada experienced a similar national crime drop and yet it does not have three strikes, and imprisons people at a rate half that of New Zealand.”

“Even in California, the results were unclear. Californian counties that aggressively enforced the law had no greater declines in crime than did counties that used it far more sparingly. One study found that crime dropped by 21.3 percent in the six most lenient "three strikes" counties, compared to a 12.7 percent drop in the toughest counties.”

“It is inevitable that if one increases the prison population four fold in 10 years, that some of that crime reduction will be due to increased incarceration. Notwithstanding, there is no compelling evidence to show that the three strikes legislation impacted on criminal offending, one way or the other. The test in New Zealand will be what happens to the crime rate when hundreds of offenders start pouring out of prisons after serving 15 “ 25 years or more, from 2040 onwards, and whether imprisonment has reduced their taste for crime. We think not.”

ENDS

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