So, I am a late 20s college professor, and over the years I have seen students go to jail for crimes I have also committed. I’m white and have lots of degrees.
In college I smoked pot, like everyone else. I once bought a lot of pot from a friend and then decided I didn’t really enjoy smoking, so I sold it to another friend. I also drank while underage, and have driven drunk on occasion.
I tend to drive with my tag expired for months at a time and almost never get pulled over. If I do I often get a warning or the ticket is waved once I get inspected.
I once put the tags from my old car onto a new one I bought and got pulled over for speeding a month later. The cop told me that this was very illegal, and they were supposed to arrest me and impound the car. He just told me to fix it soon. Didn’t even get a ticket.
When my wife and I were poor after college we would steal things from stores that we didn’t have the money for. Mostly groceries or makeup or other small items. I still steal spices because they are so easy to take and seem very overpriced.
I didn’t take my Oxycontin after I had my wisdom teeth out, so I sold them to a friend for $5 a pill. I had an optional refill for 20 more so I did that and sold them to the same person.
Any one of these things could have given me a criminal record, and yet I have never even been close to being arrested.