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...
Correlations do not 'result' in things. - HELLO! - Causations 'result' in things.
Nice foot shot, again.
Please pay attention.
A correlation is a measure of how closely the numbers from two data sets cluster next to a line on an xy graph. Here is a fairly elementary discussion of correlation. Normally, such graphs also contain a trendline, the line that would be seen if the two data sets had a perfect 1:1 correlation. So, if you are making the claim that x and y are correlated, you are saying that for every change in x, you are seeing an equivalent change in y as determined by the slope equation (y=mx+b) of the trendline, within a certain margin of error. The equation for correlation is also contained on that page; this equation gives a numerical value to the average deviation from the trendline of each point in the data set. The higher the magnitude of the number (it can be positive or negative), the more closely the two data sets match.
Now, let me reiterate: you claim to see a correlation between marijuana laws and crime. Assuming that you can assign a numerical value to marijuana laws such that they can be graphed and calculated in conjunction with criminal activity, the correlation isn't there. Possession of marijuana was a felony in the early 1960s and was downgraded to a misdemeanor sometime in the 1970s. I remember this because, as I already said, I grew up in the SF Bay Area, the heart of the "counterculture" movement of the 1960s-1970s. Yet, in this environment where possession of less than a gram was no more serious than a traffic ticket, crime rates were increasing (according to the graph I made from that crime table that you linked). Thus, no positive correlation exists between marijuana laws and crime. Crime rates (as graphed from the table) were dropping before backdoor marijuana legalization efforts were being implemented. So, again, whatever relation there might be between the data sets, it is not a correlation.
Please note that I am speaking strictly of mathematical functions, what I expect to see if a specific mathematical function is operant, and that not a single word of this discussion mentions causality or possible mechanisms of causality.
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.
I would not know what Nixon's campaign pledges were, since I was a child living in a McGovern household at the time and was not paying attention to politics. But I do know the counterculture, and witnessed how it steadily grew and became more influential from its roots in the 1960s. The counterculture did not like any laws; they believed in psychotherapy for criminals, and blamed society for criminal behavior. And, regardless of Nixon's campaign pledges, the counterculture had a lot of influence in liberalizing the criminal justice system so that in some places, prisons became "revolving doors", letting criminals out almost as soon as they were sentenced. And when this lax enforcement of laws resulted in (caused, because there actually is a mechanism to show how this happened) an explosion in crime rates, only then was there a real push-back among the people, who voted for minimum sentencing and three strikes laws. And only then did crime rates start to go down again. The "how" is very simple: criminals kept locked up in prison commit very little crime, and potential criminals might think twice about committing a crime if they know that punishment consists of more than a slap on the wrist.
As far as any drug arrests go, maybe more people were arrested (that would make sense, because one counterculture feature is a love of drug use/abuse, so that practice was actually increasing during that time), but actually going to prison for drug use? I've never seen that happen, although I am aware of many many cases where drug users/abusers were sent to rehab. As far as I know, drug users in prison are there because of some other crime, not the drug abuse (although drug abuse might have led them to commit the other crimes). Since I am military, I have to be trained yearly in how to recognize drug abuse; of all of the videos we have seen that feature drug abusers talking about their addictions, the one thing they never mention is ever spending time in prison for their abuse. Rehab facilities, yes--prison, no.
And I will point out that your language in this paragraph indicates that you really do believe that changes in the crime rate are caused by drug laws. Only now, you seem to be including all drug laws, not just marijuana laws.