TOUGH SENTENCING LAW SELDOM USED

Five years after "three strikes" laws to put repeat criminals away swept the country, most states have left the statutes in mothballs. So reported the Associated Press recently.

Most of the 23 states that adopted "three strikes" laws in the mid-1990s have each put a half-dozen or fewer people behind bars under their statutes, which create long and usually mandatory sentences for criminals who commit new offenses. In many states, the laws send defendants off to prison for life without parole for a third offense.

There are exceptions: California has put away more than 40,000 people for second and third strikes since passing the law in 1994. That is a quarter of the state's prison population. California started the national push for such laws amid furor over the abduction and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaus by a man with a long criminal record. But other states that have passed the law, such as Wisconsin, have used it only a handful of times.

"It went a long way on a catchy title," said D. Alan Henry, a criminal justice researcher who has written about the "three strikes" movement. "Contrary to what legislatures thought, there weren't awful numbers of cases of people who had committed heinous crimes and were released and then came back and were treated lightly."

Criminology is at best an inexact science, and lawmaking isn't a science at all, but one among many imperfect human endeavors. Critics and supporters of "three strikes" laws will continue to argue over their efficacy.