Six months after a sentencing provision calling for mandatory prison sentences for some violent criminals became law, it has yet to be used by prosecutors.

Law enforcement officials say the law was intended to handle only the most violent repeat offenders and that six months is hardly enough time to evaluate its effectiveness. Critics, however, maintain the law is redundant and merely repeats what is already on the books.

"There just aren't many serious crimes that work their way through the system in six months," said state Attorney General Mark J. Bennett. "I just don't think you can draw any logical conclusions from it (six months of activity)."

Gov. Linda Lingle signed the law in June.

Under the law, the prosecutor has discretion to seek mandatory sentences of 30 years to life after criminals are convicted of a third violent felony. The House added a five-year sunset provision so lawmakers would have to evaluate the results in July 2011.

The crimes eligible for the penalty include murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, and first-degree sexual assault, robbery and burglary.

DEBATE OVER BURGLARY

Public defenders and some civil-liberties activists have said burglary should not be on the list because it is a property crime, not a violent crime.

But law-enforcement officials, including Bennett and Honolulu prosecutor Peter Carlisle, have said home burglary creates an enormous risk of physical and psychological harm and should be classified as a violent crime.

The U.S. Department of Justice, when it compiles crime statistics, classifies burglary as a property crime.

The Hawai'i proposal is less severe than California's three-strikes law, which imposes mandatory sentences of 25 years to life after a third conviction for any felony, including property crimes.

Opponents had cited the inclusion of burglary as an example of how the proposal is flawed and could lead to some of the same results as in California, where one criminal got the maximum sentence for stealing golf clubs.

A review of the law by the California legislative analyst's office found that 46 percent of criminals received their third strikes for nonviolent offenses.

ONLY 'WORST' CRIMINALS

State Rep. Blake Oshiro, D-33rd (Halawa, 'Aiea, Pearlridge), the vice chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said mandatory minimum sentences are too rigid an approach to justice.

The fact that the provision has not been used at all during the first six months, after law enforcement officials lobbied hard on the urgency of instituting the law to combat criminals on the street, raises questions, he said.

"It makes me a little skeptical to whether we really needed this since we already have laws on the books that address this," said Oshiro. "I don't know how necessary it is."

Oshiro said he will pass final judgment on the bill after the Legislature evaluates its effectiveness in 2011.

Carlisle said the law was never intended to be implemented liberally and that it is finely tuned to apply to the "worst of the worst."

"We don't have a lot of violent crime, but we have some absolutely God-awful people who show up and keep doing terrible things over and over again," said Carlisle. "These are people that are way too dangerous for the community as a whole to take a risk on. We do hardly use it and we may never use it very much as long as we're able to control violent repeat offenders in other fashions, but this is a necessary sentencing provision for those we can't control."

DELAYED IMPACT

Opponents of the law maintain it diminishes the power of the judiciary. Some also believe the law, if implemented too liberally, will only further fill overcrowded prisons.

"I want judges to have discretion. If we create cookie-cutter justice and have legislators create penalties for every crime, why do we need a judiciary?" said Kat Brady, coordinator of the Community Alliance on Prisons. "Mandatory minimums are costly and ineffective."

Supporters and critics of the proposed three-strikes law agree its impact won't become clear for years.

The reason is that felons convicted for their third strike would be sentenced to years in prison under existing law anyway.

The impact of a new three-strikes law on the prisons won't become apparent until those convicts pass the point where they would have been released under existing law, and instead remain in prison because of the three-strikes law.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.