Three Strikes Law Case Study

The effects of the Three Strikes Law on California’s economy were evident through the significant costs that were required to house inmates for the duration of the sentences imposed by the law. As of 2009, the California Department of Corrections estimated those costs to have been 19.2 billion dollars (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2009). From 1985 to 2010, California’s prison budget increased from four percent to ten percent. Meanwhile, the state’s higher education budget decreased from eleven percent to less than six percent. The health and welfare and K12 funding also decreased because of the additional funding required to house the growing number of inmates who were imprisoned under the Three Strikes Law.

A review conducted by the National Institute of Justice concluded after comparing states with comparable laws in place to California’s Three Strikes Law that California was the only state that the implementation of the law would cause a significant increase in the prison

However, a multivariate time series study of violent crime in California over the last fifty years indicated that decreased unemployment rates and alcohol consumption had an important impact on the drop in violent crime rates. There was no evidence to support that the Three Strikes Law had an impact in deterring violent crime (Parker, 2012). However, a comparison study conducted in 2007 measured the impact of the Three Strikes Law in regards to the likelihood of former inmates to be rearrested within the first three years of their release. The first group had been convicted of two strike offenses and the second group had been convicted of one strike offense in addition to one lesser offense. The findings concluded that the first group was seventeen percent less likely to be rearrested than the second group (Fischman,