23 Petty Crimes That Have Landed People in Prison for Life Without Parole

Just read an article that just makes you shake your head and wonder why the USA are spending about USD 40 billion per year on incarceration and here the list:

  • Possessing a crack pipe
  • Possessing a bottle cap containing a trace amount of heroin (too minute to be weighed)
  • Having traces of cocaine in clothes pockets that were invisible to the naked eye but detected in lab tests
  • Having a single crack rock at home
  • Possessing 32 grams of marijuana (worth about $380 in California) with intent to distribute
  • Passing out several grams of LSD at a Grateful Dead show
  • Acting as a go-between in the sale of $10 worth of marijuana to an undercover cop
  • Selling a single crack rock
  • Verbally negotiating another man’s sale of two small pieces of fake crack to an undercover cop
  • Having a stash of over-the-counter decongestant pills that could be used to make methamphetamine
  • Attempting to cash a stolen check
  • Possessing stolen scrap metal (the offender was a junk dealer)—10 valves and one elbow pipe
  • Possessing stolen wrenches
  • Siphoning gasoline from a truck
  • Stealing tools from a shed and a welding machine from a front yard
  • Shoplifting three belts from a department store
  • Shoplifting several digital cameras
  • Shoplifting two jerseys from an athletic store
  • Taking a television, circular saw, and power converter from a vacant house
  • Breaking into a closed liquor store in the middle of the night
  • Making a drunken threat to a police officer while handcuffed in the back of a patrol car
  • Being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm
  • Taking an abusive stepfather’s gun from their shared home

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