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Web Only Apr 9, 2021 By Cinnamon Janzer, Next City
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