California's "three strikes and you're out" law -- which imposes mandatory 25-years-to-life sentences on three-time felons -- has been responsible for driving down crime rates there to levels last seen in 1968, according to the state's attorney general. Dan Lungren also gives credit to community-oriented policing.

• Once the law took effect, prisoners began asking for copies, parolees from other states began avoiding California and the state's own parolees began moving to other states, Lungren claims.

• There have been at least 1,600 fewer murders in California in the three years since the law took effect -- with similar dramatic reductions in the number of rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries and car thefts.

• Crime there has reportedly dropped 24 percent -- compared to 12 percent in the rest of the nation.

• Twenty-two states have enacted three strikes laws, so far.

Lungren said the New York City approach also works: increase the number of police officers and concentrate on aggressive small-crime enforcement.

Source: Dan Lungren (California attorney general), "Our Tough Law Works," USA Today, February 24, 1997.