alt Hacker NewsThe weapons offenses are by a longshot "felon in possession of a firearm." That one is crazy to me. You're going to send people out into the free world, where guns are legal, and owning a gun is legal, and they are supposedly off the books, and then just tempt them with owning something to defend themselves that everyone around them already has but then lock them away for a decade for doing so? Obviously most of the drug ones are just as absurd -- you're locking up drug dealer A who is immediately replaced with drug dealer B with absolutely no change to drug operations or consumption but at great expense to yourself. Thankfully we've pretty much stopped putting drug users in federal prison.
You could probably wipe out over half the federal prisons without any real change to greater society.
Go to your local county jail lockup, by far the most common charge is driving on a suspended license - because many crimes will get your license suspended as a matter of course, and others will give you payment plans and paperwork filing dates and if you aren't on top of everything well enough you will get suspended for missing a payment or failing to submit your stuff properly, then enjoy violating probation with an additional misdemeanor, impound fees, court fees, and possible jail time.