In 2012, Washington State legalized the production, sale, and possession of marijuana through Initiative 502. Advocates of legalization argued that it would decrease the jail population and reduce the disproportionate incarceration of minorities, reasoning that the police would refocus their resources on other matters. In order to evaluate this assumption, we examined jail booking data using a set of interrupted time-series regression models. Our findings indicate that jail population trends differ among counties across time and with respect to impacts on minorities and women. With regard to ethnic and racial disproportionate impact, there appears to be little positive change.

中文翻译：

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大麻合法化对华盛顿州监狱人口的影响

2012 年，华盛顿州通过 502 倡议将大麻的生产、销售和拥有合法化。合法化的拥护者认为这将减少监狱人口并减少对少数族裔的不成比例的监禁，理由是警方将把他们的资源重新集中在其他事项上。为了评估这一假设，我们使用一组中断时间序列回归模型检查了监狱预订数据。我们的研究结果表明，监狱人口趋势在不同时间以及对少数民族和妇女的影响方面因县而异。关于族裔和种族不成比例的影响，似乎没有什么积极的变化。