"Under the Rockefeller drug laws, the penalty for selling two ounces (57 g) or more of heroin, morphine, "raw or prepared opium," cocaine, or cannabis or possessing four ounces (113 g) or more of the same substances, was a minimum of 15 years to life in prison, and a maximum of 25 years to life in prison."
Crime still shot up in NY like it did everywhere else. So much for your argument.
A. This law was only in New York. In California, at the same time, marijuana was a misdemeanor, much like a traffic ticket.
B. The portion of it that pertained to marijuana was repealed in 1979.
C. Mandatory sentencing and increased punishment were enacted when the United States Congress passed the Boggs Act of 1952. The acts made a first time cannabis possession offense a minimum of two to ten years with a fine up to $20,000; however, in 1970, the United States Congress repealed mandatory penalties for cannabis offenses.[4] With the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 Congress enacted different mandatory minimum sentences for drugs, including marijuana. And,
C. You are the one claiming to see a correlation between marijuana laws and crime rates, not me. As I already pointed out, there is not even a weak correlation. And any causative mechanisms that exist between drug laws and crime are far too complex to be hinted at by a simplistic calculation of correlation.
As you said, the first 3-strike law was passed in 1993. Another passed the following year, and I'm assuming others were passed in subsequent years.
The 3 strikes laws were not the only factor. Pushing for longer minimum sentences had an effect, as well. To put it simply, it is exceedingly difficult for a criminal in prison to commit crimes. And, since we the people have been pushing back against leniency towards criminals since the 1980s, more of them *are* convicted, and more of them *are* incarcerated for longer terms that keep them off the streets for longer periods of time. BTW, that Wiki article on minimum sentencing had almost no useful information other than what I quoted above. It seemed to be more of a sociology essay, meant to influence opinion. Furthermore, it seemed focused almost exclusively on drug laws, but I wanted info on all criminal laws.
The correlation between drug laws and crime rates isn’t hard to find. Just look at that driving force and enabling mechanism behind the increasing number of Second and Fourth Amendment rights violations by government agencies. Or are we not considering that a crime?
The claim that 3-strike laws were in any way causative in reducing crime does not hold water when you look at state level data.
Crime fell as much in states that didn't have such laws as those that did - even in liberal states. For example, Illinois and Massachusetts had no 3-strike laws, but their violent crime rate fell by half or better from the early 1990s peak, as it did everywhere else. The data is available at the following link =>
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
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And, since we the people have been pushing back against leniency towards criminals since the 1980s, more of them *are* convicted, and more of them *are* incarcerated for longer terms that keep them off the streets for longer periods of time.
Oh, so now it's the 1980s? You've claimed in post after post it started in the 1990s =>
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...the more strict measures that started being implemented in the 1990s... (post #42)
In the 1990s, as a result of widespread criminal behavior, people started pushing back... (post #50)
...the tougher laws and mandatory sentencing requirements that have been enacted since the 1990s... (post #53)
In the 1990s, people started becoming very vocal about getting tough on crime—the first 3 strikes law was passed in 1993 in WA, and CA’s 3 strikes passed a year later (post #57)
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, (post #76)
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As has been demonstrated, your argument for causation is not supported by the facts.