"Evidence-based" sentencing is one of the catch-phrases of the sentencing reform movement. I have never been able to figure out exactly what it means (my experience as an AUSA was that evidence has always been considered at sentencing), but I think it means that sentencing should be based on facts.
OK, good, if that's what it actually means. That idea was, as Kent has pointed out (cf. his comment on this thread), one of the main selling points of Prop 47 in California. Prop 47 reduced sentencing for a number of drug and property offenses by re-classifying them as misdemeanors. The theory, or so we were told, was that judges would be given more leeway to impose "flexible," evidence-based sentences, and that this would help reduce crime.
Now that, in the wake of Prop 47, property crime (and violent crime) has exploded in the Golden State, however, the refrain is that it's, ummm, too early to pay attention to the evidence so attesting.
And no, I am not making this up. Read it for yourself.
The impact of Prop 47 is a VERY important story, Bill, and I am glad you and Kent are continuing to cover it. But it is important to cover and understand the facts, not make them up or use too much hyperbole in discussing what we know and do not know yet. So, to follow up:
1. Based on the story you linked to the word "exploded," I only see evidence of, at most, a 10% increase in property crime. That is certainly a significant increase, but hardly an explosion. Moreover, we also see a huge drop in the number of narcotics arrests, which leads me to wonder if the reported increase in property crime is (at least partially) a result of police on the beat spending much less time pursuing drug crimes and spending a lot more time responding to property crime. In other words, before concluding property crime has actually gone way up, I want some account of how the police time previously spent on narcotics arrest is now being spent.
I think one argument from Prop 47 supporters was the claim that cops would spend less time focused on low-level drug crimes and more time on other more serious crimes. Is it possible that this is exactly what the evidence is showing is taking place?
2. I did not see any evidence in the report you linked that violent crime "has exploded." In fact, the article you cite notes that Prop 47 has quickly reduced jail overcrowding and allowed localities to keep incarceration (and incapacitated) more serious offenders. Again, that was an argument made for Prop 47.
3. I stress all this because I am (a) not surprised by the early property crime data from CA, and (b) hopeful that we will see a decrease in violent crime as a result of Prop 47 --- especially if monies saved from previously overcrowded jails and prisons is effectively invested in evidence-based public safety programming. I am quite worried that California's long modern history of extremely poor use of taxpayer resources on criminal justice --- on matters from the death penalty to prison reform etc --- will mean the state does not use Prop 47 savings wisely. And the fact the state lacks a sentencing commission or any history of wise legislative efforts to deal with these issues without initiative reform reinforces my worry that bad crime results may from from how poorly California leaders manage criminal justice issues. But then that will be a story of government failings as much as Prop 47 being a failure.