To say that 3 factors have a better correlation with something than a 4th factor, does not mean the 3 factors are causative. If you want to know what I think are major causative factors, then please have the common courtesy to ask, then we can discuss them. In the meantime, you are not justified in assigning such a meaning to the words you quoted.
If the strong correlation you claim between marijuana laws and crime rates existed, then downgrading the laws should have resulted in a decrease in crime...
No! You just misapprehended the meaning of correlation - again. Correlations do not ‘result’ in something. Causations ‘result’ in something.
Nice foot shot.
The result was that crime rates started to climb in the early 1970s, and continued to climb until they peaked in the early 2000s...
Factually wrong. Violent crime peaked in the early to mid-1990s. By 2000, the violent crime index had fallen by about 30%. It continued to fall throughout the remainder of the decade. Read the numbers again => http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
A word on ‘push back’. This was well underway by the mid-70s. Nixon and Wallace campaigned on 'Law and Order' in 1968, garnering almost 60% of the vote between the two. Nixon would go on to launch a War on Drugs in 1971 => http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3048 The Rockefeller drug laws in liberal New York state were signed into law in 1973. Despite that, crime continued to rise in NY state, as it did every where else.
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.
Incarceration rose steadily from the mid-70s though 2010. Yet, crime rose right along with incarceration during the first 20 years of that period. You can't just ignore those years, nor can you credibly claim that the 'push back' began in the 90s.
Facts are stubborn things
Corrected link to crime stats => http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm
"There is always an easy solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong" - H. L. Mencken
"If facts conflict with a theory, either the theory must be changed or the facts" - Baruch Spinoza
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!" - 'Homer Simpson'
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics" - Benjamin Disraeli / Mark Twain
"Cum/post hoc ergo propter hoc" | "With/after this therefore because of this" - logical fallacy
"Data is not information. Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not understanding. Understanding is not wisdom. Wisdom is not the truth"
"Eliminate the impossible; whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" - 'Sherlock Holmes'
Re data in provided http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm - United States Crime Rates 1960 - 2012 :
1. If you are a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail. Only looking at any unrelated data through the prism of marijuana laws and consumption can someone make any assumptions — let alone conclusions — from the statistical data table that you provided in this link. Marijuana is not part of the data, so there is no correlation — forget about causation — between marijuana and the national crime statistics in that table.
Someone who is hung up on and is looking at everything through the prism / filter of "income or wealth inequality" could very easily "prove" from the same data that, as income or wealth "inequality" grew wider, the crime rate per capita dropped (i.e., the correlation of "inequality" and national crime rate) - so, it's a wonderful thing, except there is really no correlation, direct or reverse, between the two.
How about illegal immigration and crime rate? There has been unarguably more illegal immigration while the crime rate ostensibly dropped. Conclusions?
The per capita consumption of nicotine has decreased around the same time span. Conclusion — reduction of smoking directly correlates to the reduction in crime rates?
We know that alcohol is not a likely culprit: Gallup: U.S. Drinking Rate Edges Up Slightly to 25-Year High
Here is a good one, though I don't claim to "divine" it from that data - how about demographics and population aging, i.e., elderly commit fewer crimes?
How about increase in gun ownership? Increases in minimum wage (include states as well)? Or increase/decrease in incarceration rate? Or incarceration rate among certain income/race/political party/whatchamacallit groups?
Given enough creativity and time one can come up with any number of similar "correlations" — as long as no actual data in the statistics incorporates the variable - that's just Statistics 101. Also, let's keep in mind that societal changes (that includes crime rates) are long-term events and the shifts don't usually happen in a year or less. Enough imagination, and one can "prove" both direct and reverse correlation, shifted by only a few years, since there is no data filter in the table.
Of course, the nature (and definitions and classifications) of many crimes also changed in the last 50 or 100 years (for example, cyber-crime was nearly non-existent then) — as well as increased difficulty and lower viability of profit motive for committing many of the crimes — not due to societal changes but due to technological changes (and corresponding changes in the monetary value of some goods and services) — i.e., things or services that were very valuable 25-50 years ago are simply not worth stealing today or not worth enough effort. A very thoughtful article on this subject: What Will Crooks Do When Crime Doesn't Pay? - BLV, by Megan McArdle, 2014-07-14
Please do not use this irrelevant data to prove anything re marijuana - it's a meaningless statistical sophistry and would only serve to deliberately confuse yourself and countless others who are not proficient in elementary statistics... unless that's exactly the point of the exercise.
2. The premise seems to rely on holding two contradictory ideas at the same time - a) that the "War on drugs" failed (BTW, how can you quantify and qualify that, or is that just a good old standard statement, to "convince" the sceptics) and b) at the same time that the "War on drugs" has not really been waged (i.e., the entire premise of the marijuana laws having been relaxed or simply unenforced in certain areas). Have to pick one or the other, but I guess claiming them both at the same time is the only way to justify the conclusions based on the national crime data.
3. The so-called "War on drugs" is not just a "War on marijuana" (and is happening not only in the USA, but in the most countries.) So, regarding the desire to stop the "War on drugs" — does that extend to all illicit drugs like meth, cocaine and opioids, ecstasy/MDMA, synthetics or just to marijuana? If marijuana is decriminalized, would you say "Mission accomplished" or all other drugs should be legalized as well?
Or is the answer the good old standby — meaningless and easily refuted comparisons of THC to caffeine**, nicotine*** or "drug" alcohol — "If they are legal, then everything should be legal"?
Before answering, please see these references - there is no point making these posts even longer, repeating same ole':
Golden Gate Park pot party a major mess [San Francisco] - FR, post #33, 2013 April 21
Golden Gate Park pot party a major mess [San Francisco] - FR, post #39, 2013 April 21
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** Caffeine, in pure form, is deadly in relatively small doses. There has been an increasing number of deaths recently of people overdosing on pure caffeine.
*** Nicotine is a drug that has been proven to make people smarter (Smarter: The New Science of Building Brain Power - B, by Dan Hurley, 275 pages, 2013 February 01) and has beneficial cardiovascular properties (used by some athletes) - though smoking or chewing tobacco leaves is an addictive, stupid and very harmful method of nicotine delivery, instead of applying patches.
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.