Criminalization Crisis: Why Your Freedom Is Seriously at Risk

America has nurtured a nation of criminals: our country has the largest prison population in the world. Why? Because of hundreds of thousands of regulations that carry criminal penalties.

What's the cost of locking so many people up? Hundreds of billions of dollars each year, paid for by you, the taxpayer.

Two major stories dominating the headlines for weeks find themselves at a controversial crossroad: The COVID-19 lockdowns and the ongoing protests following the death of George Floyd are bringing a renewed focus on law enforcement and Americans' freedom or lack of it. 

We first saw this when citizens who dared to break government quarantine orders or protested to reopen their states were threatened with criminal prosecution.

Timothy Head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition writes in The Hill that it's an example of "a dangerous misuse of criminal law."

"We're seeing that kind of heavy-handed approach across the country literally impacting every single human life in the United States of America right now," Head says.

And during this wave of civil unrest and protest, we've seen peaceful demonstrators, even journalists, arrested, pepper-sprayed, and shot with rubber bullets like criminals for exercising their constitutional rights. It's a demonstration – some say – of America's problem with overcriminalization.

John Malcolm of The Heritage Foundation says, "If we end up criminalizing conduct that your average person wouldn't think was wrong, then people will all of a sudden lose respect for the rule of law."

These are regulations people break unwittingly because it doesn't seem like behavior that would or should be criminal,
and they're everywhere.

In North Carolina, for example, counties, cities, and towns – even metropolitan sewerage districts – have the power to create ordinances that automatically carry the punishment of a class three misdemeanor.

And on the federal level, efforts to count the number of regulations with criminal penalties have been abandoned –  because it's an impossible task.

"I've seen the estimate of at least 300,000. It's probably more like 400- or 500,000 regulations that carry criminal penalties," Malcolm says.

The fact is it's hard to get them off the books. President Trump could sign an executive order directing agencies to get rid of regulations with criminal penalties, but it wouldn't happen overnight, to do it legally would take years.

So, during this time of civil unrest, there's something that actually unites Americans.

"There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime. That is not an exaggeration," says John Baker, a retired Louisiana State University law professor.

For years, in a number of cities from Flint to Shreveport, wearing saggy pants was criminalized. Those regulations disproportionately targeted young black men for sporting a popular fashion trend, despite its controversy.

Head says, "When the same law is applied differently or has different impacts on different constituencies and communities it makes all of us fundamentally suspicious of the system."

And that suspicion has reached a boiling point.

"We don't want no more police. Is that clear? We don't want people with guns toting around in our communities, shooting us down," said one protester at a rally over the weekend in Minnesota.

In New York, the nation's largest city, Major Bill de Blasio vows to cut police funding.

In Minneapolis, the city council has voted to dismantle its police department. "Our commitment is to end our toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it," City Council Member Lisa Bender said to protesters during a recent rally.

In the midst of this debate over policing and crime, many Americans are hopeful the nation's problems with overcriminalization will begin to be addressed.

Beaumont, TX NAACP President Rev. Michael Cooper says, "When light shows up, darkness has to go away, so we are hoping that with all this light all the darkness will go away and stay away."

We encourage readers who wish to comment on our material to do so through our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram accounts. God bless you and keep you in His truth. 

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