Once again, you are attributing a causative effect to a correlation where no causative mechanism exists.
The drug laws were strict since the early 1900s, and crime was low until the permissive attitudes of the 1960s became widespread. In the 1960s, prison sentences were reduced because very vocal activists started blaming everyone but the criminal for crimes committed, and pushed strongly for lenient sentencing and alternatives to prison, like attendance at group therapy. This is also the time when crime started to explode. In the 1990s, as a result of widespread criminal behavior, people started pushing back against the anti-prison activists. They voted for 3 strikes laws and minimum prison sentences for crimes were enacted.
I should also point out that in the 1960s, one could go to prison in CA for possession of marijuana. That changed sometime in the late 1960s/early 1970s, so that by the end of the 1970s, possession of less than a gram of marijuana was a misdemeanor, not a felony. If more lenient marijuana laws can really cause a drop in criminal behavior, then why did crime rates keep going up after marijuana laws were “liberalized” in the 1970s?
To attribute the drop in crime to legalization of marijuana is to completely ignore the proactive anti-crime laws that were enacted at the time.
Once again, you are attributing a causative effect to a correlation where no causative mechanism exists. No, I am not. I said in my prior post => "It does not necessarily mean there is causality, but there is definitely a strong correlation." In reading your comments, I'm not sure you get the distinction between correlation and causation.
You don't have much of a correlation on the "push back" theory of falling crime, either.(see chart below) From the mid-70s to the mid-90s, crime rose right along with incarceration. That's about 2 decades of positive correlation between rising crime and rising incarceration rates, and 2 decades of negative correlation.
The 3 factors I mentioned - loosening mj laws, the internet and armed citizens - have a much better correlation with the fall in crime.
