Crooks By Linda Stowe
Since legal entanglements have been in the news lately, I began to wonder about my fellow citizens. If I take a close look at any crowd, how likely am I to find a crook? And how many crooks are we talking about? Apparently, it depends on how I define crook. The Brennan Center on Justice states that the number of people with criminal records, including felonies, is significant. Sources suggest it could be as high as one-third of the adult population, even going so far as saying as many Americans have criminal records as college diplomas. Yikes! Google says about 44% of the population has a college degree. If I specify “crook” to mean someone with a felony conviction, the number drops to 8% according to a 2017 study.
You know what this tells me? It says that I don’t know enough about doing research or understanding statistics.
~~~~~~~
Polly here.
To set the record straight, my only brush with the law has been a couple of traffic tickets from years ago. And those came as a result of being “caught” by cameras in Dayton on my way to Good Samaritan Hospital when my dad was sick. While I think I know my siblings well enough, and my friends too, I’m not aware of any that have a criminal record. So right there, we are Zero for Seven. So my question is, “Who are these people?”
I went to a couple of different sites, and they all agreed that the number is significant.
This, from the Sentencing Project:
“The United States is the global leader in incarceration. Today, more than 1.5 million Americans are incarcerated in state and federal prisons, a figure that has quintupled since 1980. Adding in jails, the number of Americans who are behind bars rises to 2.2 million.
One in three U.S. adults has been arrested by age 23. Communities of color; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals; and people with histories of abuse or mental illness are disproportionately affected. As a result, between 70 million and 100 million—or as many as one in three Americans—have some type of criminal record.”
To set the record straight again. I have a lot of friends who are gay. I don’t know of any with a criminal record.
Regardless. The statistics given above are troubling. Which brings me to the next question. Why is the United States the leader in incarcerations? And why are our “murder” rate and “death by gun rate” so high? Other countries have maybe a few murders each year. A dozen at most. But the U.S.? We are through the roof. According to the CDC, we have around 25,000 murders per year.
Maybe we should switch our motto from
Land of the Free. Home of the Brave.
To.
Land of the Criminals. Home of the Murderers.
Crooks By Linda Stowe
