If all arrested Americans were a nation, they would be the world’s 18th largest. Larger than Canada. Larger than France. More than three times the size of Australia.
The number of Americans with criminal records today is larger than the entire U.S. population in 1900.
Holding hands, Americans with arrest records could circle the earth three times.
I absolutely love all these ways of framing just how large the problem is
I can, honestly, say that I’ve never committed a crime. And when I read all of this it blew my fucking mind. I tell my sons that it’s pretty easy to get through life without committing a crime. Especially since we are privileged white males.
If you haven’t spent a lot of time in the spaces of minorities, it’s likely figures like this would surprise you. There’s a lot of propaganda out there which paints anyone who breaks the law in any fashion as a bad person and downplays figures like how minorities are often 2-3x as likely to be arrested or end up in jail.
Systemic racism in America is something that I’ve recently (past couple of years) been reading about. It’s a sad reality and I wonder what solutions there are.
say that I’ve never committed a crime
A lot of ppl have done jaywalking, speeding, theft/piracy, drugs
As of July 1, 2015, more than 70 million people have records indexed by the III.
that is an astronomical amount, jesus
