Iowa doesn’t need three strikes. It needs three chances

Iowans care deeply about public safety. We want our communities to be places where people can raise families, run businesses, and live without fear. That’s why proposals to impose harsher sentencing laws—often called “three strikes” policies—can sound appealing. But evidence and experience suggest they won’t make Iowa safer.

I write this as someone who spent 27 years incarcerated and now lives and works in Iowa as a University of Iowa PhD student studying how incarceration affects human agency. Longer sentences did not change my behavior. Education, treatment, and opportunity did.

Three-strikes laws assume that repeat offending is best addressed by keeping people locked up longer. In practice, many of the people cycling through our jails and prisons are living with untreated mental illness, substance use disorders, and significant childhood trauma. Punishment alone does not address those underlying issues. When those needs go unmet, people are more likely—not less—to return to the system.

Iowa already has evidence that a different approach works. The Iowa Department of Corrections recently reported that recidivism is at a 10-year low, attributing the decline to expanded treatment, evidence-based programming, and improved reentry efforts. That matters, because lower recidivism means fewer victims and safer communities.

During my incarceration, I earned degrees and taught math to other incarcerated men. Those opportunities didn’t erase the harm I caused, but they gave me tools to build a different future. In 2023, I was granted clemency based on sustained educational achievement and service. Today, I pay taxes, conduct research, and work to reduce cycles of reoffending. None of that would have been possible under a rigid sentencing framework that prioritized time served over change demonstrated.

This is not an argument against accountability. Accountability is essential. The question is what kind of accountability actually reduces harm.

Research consistently points to approaches that combine proportionate sentencing with:

These strategies cost less than long-term incarceration and deliver better public safety outcomes.

Iowa has a choice. We can adopt policies that sound tough but have repeatedly failed elsewhere. Or we can build on what is already working here—policies that recognize people’s capacity to change and focus on reducing future harm.

If our goal is safer communities, the evidence is clear: Iowa doesn’t need three strikes. It needs three chances.

Dell Pippins served 27 years for murder in Illinois. Gov. JB Pritzker commuted his 30-year sentence after Pippins was accepted into a Ph.D. program in criminology at the University of Iowa. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s while he was incarcerated. He founded the “If I Don’t Do It Institute” in Cedar Rapids, which empowers “justice-impacted individuals and communities through innovative education, health, and comprehensive reentry support.”