In this Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017 photo, cultivator Carla Selvin rallies outside San Francisco City Hall to tout the benefits of marijuana and urge supervisors to pass pot-friendly regulations in San Francisco. California voters opted to legalize marijuana in the state in 2016, but even today, many people have outstanding marijuana-related convictions, denying them the ability to find housing or get a job. (AP Photo/Janie Har)
More than 70 million Americans have a criminal record in the United States. This means that almost every time nearly one in three Americans applies for a job or to college, signs up for public assistance programs, or tries to find housing, their history of arrests — even those that didn’t lead to a conviction or for which they were found innocent — haunts them, creating a barrier to the essential elements of a stable life and economic mobility. Because almost half of all children in the U.S. have a parent with a criminal record, the socioeconomic barriers carry across generations and create lasting ripple effects that impact upward mobility.