‘Three-Strikes’ Worries

A report on the “three-strikes” law just published by the California Higher Education Policy Center in Sacramento says upfront, “We (do not) take issue with the primacy of public safety or the state’s need for more stringent rules for keeping habitual, violent criminals off our streets.” But the center, unaffiliated with any university and employing the cold, objective language of economic analysis, goes on to offer a perspective on the unintended consequences of the “three-strikes” law that makes for sobering reading indeed.

Maintaining only current levels of access, the University of California and California State University systems face a 50% increase in enrollment of full-time students by 2006. Between now and then, the state’s revenue will also increase, but 70% of the state budget is already committed by law to debt payments, federal matching fund mandates and funding for elementary, secondary and junior college education. Of the remaining 30%, 100% of the anticipated increase will be required for prison construction and operation after 1996-97.

The implication here is that if Proposition 184 passes and no additional major revenue is found, there could be no new money whatsoever for new college students. It is thus entirely arguable that the UC and Cal State systems could be replaced by different sorts of institutions with either severely limited enrollment or drastically increased tuition.

Of course “three-strikes” proponents argue that public safety is paramount. And they are right. But intelligent, minor modification of “three strikes,” concentrating on violent offenders, for example, could even now forestall the worst. After all, the November ballot’s Proposition 184 duplicates the “three strikes” law that was passed by the Legislature last March. It remains on the ballot only because its backers want to put it beyond the reach of even modest modification by the very Legislature that has passed it. That could prove to be a huge mistake, even if the very worst of the worst-case analysis proves to be overstated.