If you do not mean to imply that changes in marijuana laws have anything to do with overall crime rates, then why did you bring it up in such a way as to suggest that you think they are connected?
No! You just misapprehended the meaning of correlation - again. Correlations do not ‘result’ in something. Causations ‘result’ in something.
Actually, I meant "correlation." I should have said, "...resulted in an apparent decrease in crime." When data sets are strongly correlated, then the trends you see in one data set are also contained within the other data set. What I was pointing out was that, despite your claims that there is a correlation between marijuana laws and crime rates, actual examination of the data does not reveal a correlation. In any case, since changing a marijuana law is an infrequent event, you can't really look at a correlation anyway, because a change in law does not generate a data set that can be statistically compared 1 to 1 with the crime rate data set. I suppose one could look at changes in the trend line slope to try to find a correlation. But it's a pointless exercise, anyway. The actual situation about what is going on with marijuana laws and non-marijuana crimes is probably fairly complex.
Lastly, your claim that the posted graph supports you is yet another example of error in your posts. Look at the US crime table at the 'disaster center' link (earlier in this post) and compare it to the incarceration graph.
I graphed the numbers. I acknowledged previously that the graph you posted with the incarceration rates was only a proxy for crime--there are many reasons for this. The graph of the numbers shows what is going on better than a table. First of all, the incidence of crime follows the same pattern, no matter whether you choose "violent crime" or all crime. The magnitude of different kinds of crime varies, but the overall pattern of peaks and troughs is the same. And it still supports my hypothesis that the move towards tougher sentencing laws which began in the early 1990s has had an effect to lower crime, while the move towards lenient laws starting in the 1960s had the overall effect of increased crime. Although you keep trying to say that the strictness of the laws, how well they are enforced, and the crime rates are completely independent of each other, that simply is not the case.
Correlations do not 'result' in things. - HELLO! - Causations 'result' in things.
Nice foot shot, again.
And it still supports my hypothesis that the move towards tougher sentencing laws which began in the early 1990s has had an effect to lower crime, while the move towards lenient laws starting in the 1960s had the overall effect of increased crime.
Sure, if you ignore the Law and Order sentiment that helped Nixon and Wallace garner 60% of the vote in 1968, the Drug War begun under Nixon in 1971, the Rockefeller laws in 1973, the steady, decades long trend of increasing drug arrests that began in the early 1970s, and the explosion of incarcerated individuals beginning in the mid-1970s.
Other than that, your hypothesis is sound...