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59 Fed. Probation 16 (1995)
Three Strikes and You're Out Legislation: A National Assessment

handle is hein.journals/fedpro59 and id is 192 raw text is: Three Strikes and You're Out Legislation:
A National Assessment
By MICHAEL G. TURNER, JODY L. SUNDT, BRANDON K. APPLEGATE, AND
FRANcIs T. CULLEN*

HROUGHOUT THE past two decades, poli-
cies that guide the administration of the
criminal justice system have been designed
to get tough on individuals who violate the law
(Cullen & Wright, in press; Gordon, 1990). For ex-
ample, legislators in the 1970's tried to out tough
one another by enacting mandatory sentencing
laws (Skolnick, 1994a). In addition, capital punish-
ment, following a brief moratorium, was reinstated
in many states as a sentencing alternative (Zim-
ring & Hawkins, 1986, 1991). Further, legislators
enacted determinate sentences to replace indeter-
minate sentences in efforts to ensure that offend-
ers would serve the sentence that was originally
handed down (Rothman, 1980). In this same pe-
riod, the prison population expanded at a rate in-
comparable to that of any other 20-year period in
previous history (Skolnick, 1995). More specifi-
cally, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (1994) re-
ported that on June 30, 1994, the.American prison
population exceeded 1 million inmates, a figure
more than five times the prison population re-
ported in 1970. This increase may partly be attrib-
uted to the collective efforts of legislators to enact
more punitive sentencing policies (Clear, 1994;
Zimring & Hawkins, 1991).
Recently, politicians have launched yet another
wave of the get-tough-on-crime rhetoric and policy.
The impetus of this movement, however, does not
appear to have been rooted in the aggregate behaviors
of criminals. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (1994)
reports that from 1976 to 1991, the rate (per 100,000)
of victimizations has slightly decreased for crimes of
violence (3,260 to 3,130) and significantly decreased
for property crimes such as burglary (8,890 to 5,310).
Offenses known to police similarly seem unable to
explain the emphasis on getting tough. Although the
rate (per 100,000) of total crimes has risen from 5,287
in 1976 to 5,898 in 1991 (Bureau of Justice Statis-
tics,1994), this slight increase seems unlikely to be the
catalyst politicians use to propose get-tough policies.
In contrast, the recent get-tough movement appears
to have grown out of a few highly publicized, heinous
crimes combined with the public's fear of being victim-
*The authors are all with the University of Cincinnati's
Division of Criminal Justice. Mr. Turner, Ms. Sundt, and Mr.
Applegate are doctoral students. Dr. Cullen is Distinguished
R earch Professor of Criminal Justice.

ized (Skolnick, 1994a). The murders of Polly Klaas--
the 12-year-old girl who was abducted from her home
in suburban Petaluma, California--and James Jor-
dan-the father of basketball star Michael Jordan-
are clear examples of individual incidents that
sparked considerable media attention and public out-
rage. Legislators have focused on these incidents to
draw support for their campaign by promising to enact
lock 'em up legislation (Benekos & Merlo, 1995;
Zimring, 1994). The intent of this campaign has pri-
marily been to target dangerous offenders who habitu-
ally prey on innocent victims. The nature of this
approach has involved an effort by both state and
Federal legislators to enact policies that identify, and
incapacitate for life, violent and/or nonviolent habitual
offenders. The terminology most often associated with
this type of legislation is three strikes and you're out.'
This phrase concisely captures the policy's basic ele-
ments: life imprisonment following an offender's third
felony conviction.
Despite apparent bipartisan support for get-tough
legislation, three strikes laws have ignited contro-
versy among both liberal and conservative policymak-
ers (Pertman & Franklin, 1994). Common concerns
include what effect these policies will have on the
population of correctional institutions, whether non-
violent crimes should be included in the legislation,
and what cost these policies will generate for correc-
tional systems already overburdened with substantial
administrative and operational expenditures
(Benekos & Merlo, 1995; Corwin, 1994; Gross, 1994;
Pertman & Franklin, 1994). Regardless of these con-
cerns, however, three-strikes policies have been exten-
sively proposed and implemented throughout the
United States.
Although the three-strikes phrase is currently in
vogue among legislators, the media, and the public,
the details of these laws are not well known. While
recent research identifies many of the states that have
implemented three-strikes legislation (Benekos &
Merlo, 1995; Hunzeker, 1994a; Karpelowicz, 1994),
these reports fail to detail the entire contents of the
statutes. In particular, prior research has not provided
precise information pertaining to the exact crimes that
are included in three-strikes legislation. Further, pre-
vious research typically does not include all of the
versions of the legislation that policymakers in each
jurisdiction have proposed. This lack of information

VaL 59, N& a

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