1 in 4 Americans Are Criminals

May 1, 2015

Federal records show 1 in 4 Americans are criminals, or more than the entire population of France. 

In terms of actual numbers, that’s about 68-million U.S. citizens who’ve been arrested and/or convicted for at least one crime, and who can’t therefore pass a criminal background check.

And those figures don’t include juvenile offenders whose arrest and conviction records are generally kept confidential.

United States of Thugs

The breakdown of American thuggery, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics which annually crunches such data, reveals an amazing portion of perps -- over 20-million -- are convicted felons.

Per annum, BJS reports another 14-million adults are newly arrested, with a national average of 2.2 million people living in incarceration at any given time for having committed either major or minor offenses.

Criminals need not apply

Apart from the astonishing rate that Americans manage to break the law and get busted, is the fact that the majority of employers nationwide now rely solely on background checks for hiring and firing their work force.

It isn’t lawful, of course, to discriminate in employment, and that prohibition includes prejudicial no-hire policies against those who’ve found themselves in police custody or, worse, imprisoned even for one day.

But, still, the barriers that a criminal past poses for jobseekers and job-keepers, in an era where producing records requires only a few taps on a keyboard and an internet connection, is very real.

Can you pass a criminal background check?

While 1 in 4 Americans are criminals, that leaves 75-percent of us with nothing to hide or worry about … right?

But critics warn that the virtual dragnet is so wide these days that many millions of citizens who’ve made mistakes long ago and who have since done a turnaround, are still being socially and economically penalized.

What do you think -- should folks who have been the subject of an arrest, or even convicted lawbreakers who served their sentences, be forced to carry a ball and chain forever?

@EponymousRox

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