Question

The changing attitudes toward marijuana can be difficult to fit into our understanding of crime. At the federal level, the drug is classified as a controlled substance and possession and distribution may carry severe penalties. In most states, possession is a criminal offense with penalties including jail. In a few states, possession is treated as a misdemeanor and in a handful of states, beginning with Colorado and Washington, recreational marijuana possession is now legal. What does this suggest about the difficulties of measuring changes in crime rates over time?

Answer 1

Definitions of crimes change over time.

Step-by-step explanation:

Other example would be in the past discriminatory treatments toward minority in the past is considered to be legal. So all actions revolved around it were never really recorded in the crime statistic. If those actions were conducted today, the number of crime rate recorded would be extremely high.

Because of this different standards, it is very hard for us to actually count the number of count rate between eras.